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THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 

£1E'LOGIC-OF'HIS'CAREER 
Charles G. Washburn 







Book . 

Gopyright]^'^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

THE LOGIC OF HIS CAREER 







THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Jk. 
AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 30 



y»;?*^- 



THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 

THE LOGIC OF HIS 
CAREER 



BY 



CHARLES G. WASHBURN 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
BOSTON AND NEW YORK I916 



-1/1/5 



COPYRIGHT, I916, BY CHARLES G. WASIIBfRN 
ALL HIGIITS RESKRVED 

Published February iqib 



FEB 251916 



CLA41.S!)78 



TO 

The W'lfe^ the Children^ and the Grandchildren 

or 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



CONTENTS 



I. From the Time of his going to College in i 876 

TO HIS Accession to the Presidency in 1901 . i 

Roosevelt in College — Service in the Legislature — 
Interest in Literature, Hunting, Travel — Repub- 
lican Candidate for Mayor of New York — Civil 
Service Commissioner — Police Commissioner — 
Assistant Secretary of the Navy — Lieutenant-Colonel 
of the Rough Riders — Governor of New York — 
Vice-President of the United States — President. 

II. Changing Social and Industrial Conditions . 43 

Convention of 1 904 — New Leadership — The Trusts 
and the Railroads — Northern Securities Case — 
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act — The Negro Qiies- 
tion — Booker Washington — Discharge of Negro 
Regiment at Brownsville — The Labor Question. 

III. Roosevelt and the Monroe Doctrine ... 89 

The Monroe Doctrine — Foreign Policy — The 
Army and Navy — Nobel Prize — Arbitration — 
Treaties — Preparedness — Mercliant Marine — The 
Tariff — Consen'ation — Relations with Congress — 
Legislation during his Administration — Tennessee 
Coal and Iron Company — End of his Term. 

IV. The African and European Trips . . . .144 
The Vatican Incident — Return to New York — 
Campaigns of 191 2 — Recall of Judicial Decisions. 

V. Roosevelt's Personal Characteristics — Con- 
clusion 196 

Appendix 217 

The Carnegie Hall Address. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Three T. R.'s Frontispiece 

Photograph by Walter Scott Shirir^ ^9^5 

Theodore Roosevelt on his Graduation from Har- 
vard College IN 1880 4 

Photograph by Notman^ Boston 

Facsimile of Letter written by Roosevelt after his 
Election to the New York Assembly in i88i . 8 

Roosevelt in 1897 22 

Photograph by Rockwood^ 1^97 

Roosevelt when President of the United States . 1 1 8 

Photograph by E. S. Curtis, ig04 

Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt with their Grandson 
Richard Derby, Jr 196 

Photograph by tht Campbell Studio, igij '. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

CHAPTER I 

FROM THE TIME OF HIS GOING TO COLLEGE IN 
1876 UNTIL HE BECAME PRESIDENT IN I90I 

1HAVE known Theodore Roosevelt since we 
entered Harvard together in the autumn of 
1876. I knew him intimately in college; and, 
while I have seen him only at irregular intervals 
since we graduated in 1880, I have always fol- 
lowed his career closely and with the most in- 
tense interest. Through all these years I have 
had very definite views of his character which I 
have never seen any occasion to change. These 
views differ radically from those held by many 
people. I purpose to express them here, and if 
no one shall find the recital either instructive or 
interesting, it will at least be a satisfaction to 
me to leave a record of my estimate of a man 
whom I have known and loved for nearly forty 
years. This is in no sense a history or even a 
finished sketch of his life. It is a record of my 
personal impressions, fortified by such facts as 



2 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

would seem to justify my conclusions, and with 
no attempt to secure a complete perspective, 
through the relative amount of detail with 
which Roosevelt's characteristics and the events 
of the time are discussed. 

In order to make the trend of my discourse 
clear, I will say at the outset that my purpose is 
to give the reasons upon which I base my con- 
clusion that Roosevelt has never been a "politi- 
cian"; that his opinions, regarded by many as 
radical and by some as even revolutionary, were 
carefully considered for many years before they 
found expression; and that in the campaigns of 
191 2 he was seeking to advance a cause and 
not any personal ambition. I shall discuss 
some of the great questions with which he 
dealt, and shall not even refer to others per- 
haps equally or more important. Incidentally 
I shall give my reasons for believing that Roose- 
velt is, and always has been, a person of great 
simplicity of character, of the highest ideals, 
and with a wider range of genuine human sym- 
pathies than any other man who ever occupied 
the Presidential office. I say wider range of 
genuine human sympathies, not deeper sympa- 
thies, for I have Lincoln in mind. I shall at- 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 3 

tempt to account for his great popularity and to 
state the reason why he deliberately and unself- 
ishly, as I believe, chose a course which, for 
the time being at least, has cast a shadow upon 
his pathway. 

I will say here, lest I forget to say it elsewhere, 
that the qualities I knew in the boy are the quali- 
ties most observed in the man, and that of all 
the men I have known for as long a time he has 
changed the least. 

As a boy in college, he was a good student, 
but not a "grind"; he entered into and enjoyed 
every phase of college life — intellectual, physi- 
cal, social; he was popular with all, loved by 
many; the natural sciences, history, and politi- 
cal economy were the studies that interested him 
most; he had honorable mention in natural his- 
tory, had a Commencement part, and was a 
member of the Phi Beta Kappa. He was in- 
tense in everything he did; his occupation for 
the moment was to the exclusion of everything 
else; if he were reading, the house might fall 
about his head, he could not be diverted. This 
power of concentration, a great gift, is one which 
has contributed so largely to his ability to ac- 
complish so much in so many fields of activity. 



4 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

He was fond of athletics, but never greatly 
excelled; he never claimed to: he did the best 
he could. Boxing was his favorite sport, but he 
was greatly handicapped because he was near- 
sighted. Many people have said that Roosevelt 
wore glasses when he boxed. Referring to this, 
he once said: — 

No human being could box with spectacles or 
glasses on. It would be absolutely certain that he 
would have them broken in the first minute or two, 
and in all human probability he would then be 
blinded permanently. The usual result when I boxed 
with any really first-class man . . . was that I got 
thoroughly well pounded, and with no one of those 
men would my glasses have lasted thirty seconds. 

He had a lively sense of humor. I remember 
well with what glee he told us that he had gone 
to Boston to get a basket of live lobsters for 
laboratory purposes, and on the way back they 
escaped, much to the consternation of the wo- 
men in the horse-car. 

His love for the open was in constant evi- 
dence. During the intervals in the semi-an- 
nual examinations it frequently happened that 
a boy would have a little time at his disposal. 
"Teddy" would take advantage of the oppor- 
tunity to go to the Maine woods to hunt and 



^ 







THKODORE ROOSEVKLI' 

At the time uf his Graduation in 1880 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 5 

trap. He would come back with tales of expo- 
sure and hardship, as it seemed to us, which he 
had enjoyed. He was then, as a boy, in a class 
by himself, as he has been ever since. 

"Teddy," as he was called in college, was 
always immune from the criticism which would 
be visited upon another under the same condi- 
tions. 

He was far from being a ready speaker. I 
remember that at the "Pudding," we often in- 
cited a discussion for the purpose of rousing 
"Teddy." In his excitement he would some- 
times lose altogether the power of articulation, 
much to our delight. He had then almost a 
defect in his speech which made his utterance 
at times deliberate and even halting. It became 
evident very early that Roosevelt was a person 
sui generis, and not to be judged by the ordinary 
standards, and very early in our college life I 
came to believe in his star of destiny. I once 
received a note from him, of no great conse- 
quence which I carefully preserved, thinking, as 
I said at the time, that some day it would pos- 
sess a peculiar value. 

Roosevelt was married in October, 1880; he 
spent the summer of 1881 in Europe, and while 



6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

in Switzerland made the ascent of the Matter- 
horn and the Jungfrau — the initiatory expe- 
rience of so many explorers. 

His entrance into politics can best be recorded 
by the introduction here of his appeal to his 
constituents dated November i, 1881, and his 
endorsement by certain residents of the 21st 
Assembly District in New York: — 

New York, November ist, 1881. 
Dear Sir, 

Having been nominated as a candidate for member 
of Assembly for this District, I would esteem it a 
compliment if you honor me with your vote and per- 
sonal influence on Election day. 

Very respectfully, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

TWENTY-FIRST ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 
40th to 86th Sts., Lexington to 7th Aves. 

We cordially recommend the voters of the Twenty- 
first Assembly District to cast their ballots for 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 
for Member of Assembly, 

and take much pleasure in testifying to our appreci- 
ation of his high character and standing in the 
community. He is conspicuous for his honesty and 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 7 

Integrity, and eminently qualified to represent the 
District In the Assembly. 

New York, November ist, 1881. 

F. A. P. Barnard, William T. Black, Wlllard 
BuUard, Joseph H. Choate, Wm. A. Darling, 
Henry E. Davles, Theodore W. Dwight, Jacob 
Hess, Morris K. Jesup, Edward IMItchell, Wil- 
liam F. Morgan, Chas. S. Robinson, Ellhu Root, 
Jackson S. Schultz, Elliott F. Shepard, Gus- 
tavus Tuckerman, S. H. Wales, W. H. Webb. 

At about this time I wrote him a letter evi- 
dently containing some jocular charge that he 
had become a politician, for I received the fol- 
lowing reply: — 

6 W. 57 St., 

New York, 

Nov. 10, '81. 
Too true, too true; I have become a "political 
hack." Finding It would not Interfere much with my 
law, I accepted the nomination to the Assembly and 
was elected by 1500 majority, leading the ticket by 
800 votes. But don't think I am going to go into 
politics after this year, for I am not. 

This letter is evidence that Roosevelt at that 
time had a serious purpose to become a lawyer 
and had no intention of remaining in politics. 
His chief interest in the Legislature is thus de- 
scribed in his own words : — 



8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I paid attention chiefly while in the Legislature to 
laws for the reformation of Primaries and of the 
Civil Service and endeavored to have a certain Judge 
Westbrook impeached, on the ground of corrupt col- 
lusion with Jay Gould and the prostitution of his 
high judicial office to serve the purpose of wealthy and 
unscrupulous stock gamblers, but was voted down. 

This has a familiar sound: the reform of what 
he regarded as abuses was Roosevelt's occupa- 
tion thirty years ago and has been ever since. 

Contrary to the purpose expressed in the let- 
ter I have quoted, Roosevelt was again a candi- 
date in 1882 and ran 2000 ahead of his ticket. 
He was nominated as the Republican candidate 
for Speaker in 1883, but as his was the minority 
party, the nomination was a mere compliment. 

"Harper's Weekly" for April 21, 1883, said 

of him: — 

With energy and ardor and with a directness and 
plainness of speech from which older legislators 
shrink, Mr. Roosevelt, in the last session, moved the 
Westbrook inquiry, and in the present session he has 
urged proceedings to vacate the charter of the Man- 
hattan Elevated Railway Company. He has also 
introduced the Municipal Civil Service Reform Bill, 
and his voice and vote are sure for whatever is honest, 
wise and progressive. Like many of the younger 
Republicans, Mr. Roosevelt holds the soundest views 
upon public questions with the feeling . that the 



6 7^S'7^^ 







FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM THKCJDURE 
ROUSEVELT TO CHARLES G. WASHBURN 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 9 

Republican party is the organization which, from its 
traditional principles and the character of its mem- 
bership, is more likely wisely to secure the public 
welfare. 

Meantime, in 1882, his first book was pub- 
lished, "The Naval War of 1812.'' Here is a 
striking instance of Roosevelt's versatility; the 
subject interested him, and he wrote the book. 
He was twenty-four years old at the time. I 
shall make the following quotation from the 
preface for future reference: — • 

At present people are beginning to realize that it 
is folly for the great English-speaking Republic to 
rely for defense upon a navy composed partly of anti- 
quated hulks, and partly of new vessels rather more 
worthless than the old. 

He was reelected for a third term, and was 
made chairman of the Committee on Cities and 
of a legislative investigating committee which 
passed a series of laws which practically revolu- 
tionized the municipal government of the City 
of New York. The session of 1884 ended his 
service in the Assembly. He refused a renomina- 
tion and two nominations for Congress. His 
purpose to abandon political life seems clear. 

One of the early cartoons of Roosevelt, in 
February, 1884, represents him in the act of 



10 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

cutting the claws of the Tammany tiger, de- 
stroying the confirming power of the Board of 
Aldermen by an act of the Legislature; and 
again, a month later, the Tammany tiger is 
exhibited in a state of total collapse, teeth and 
claws scattered about, while Roosevelt and 
Governor Cleveland, arm in arm, survey the 
wreck, Roosevelt holding in one hand a pair of 
shears inscribed, "Roosevelt Bill." 

I will refer here to an act in the passage of 
which Roosevelt was interested, entitled "An 
act to improve the public health by prohibiting 
the manufacture and preparations of tobacco in 
any form in tenement houses, in certain cases." 
The law was passed to remedy a very real evil 
which Roosevelt had appreciated through a 
personal investigation of conditions in tenement 
houses, where a family with a boarder or two 
might be found living in one or two rooms, while 
the manufacture of cigars was being carried on 
in close proximity to the stove or kitchen sink. 
The law was passed in 1884, and was declared 
unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals in 
January, 1885. The court held in general terms 
that this was not a proper exercise of the "police 
power," and that the law interfered with the 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 II 

profitable and free use of his property by the 
owner or his lessee and that a constitutional 
guaranty was violated. The court said, among 
other things: — 

It cannot be perceived how the cigar-maker is to 
be improved in his health or his morals by forcing 
him from his home and its hallowed associations and 
beneficent influences to ply his trade elsewhere. 

As applied to the kind of tenement I have 
referred to, this reference to the "home and 
its hallowed associations" seems grotesque or 
tragic, depending upon the point of view. It 
is not surprising that Roosevelt's wrath should 
have blazed up at such a narrow view of the 
police power. I have referred to this matter in 
some detail, because, as I shall point out later, 
I find here the beginning of Roosevelt's revolt 
against the disposition of some courts in this 
class of cases unduly to restrict the exercise of 
the police power in safeguarding the health and 
morals of the people. The recall of judicial de- 
cisions advocated in the Columbus speech of 
191 2 is an attempt to remedy what Roosevelt 
recognized as an abuse in 1884. It was not, as 
some of his critics have suggested, the unrea- 
soning appeal of the demagogue, but the result 



12 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

of years of reflection. Whether one agrees with 
his conclusion or not, — and I do not, — one 
must acquit Roosevelt of any other purpose 
than to right what he believed to be a wrong, 
and what In many cases Is a wrong. 

His wife and mother died In February, 1884, 
and thereafter for several years, Roosevelt 
spent most of his summers on his cattle ranch 
on the Little Missouri In western Dakota and 
in making hunting trips from it after bear, 
elk, and buffalo. His time was pretty evenly di- 
vided, as he said, between ranching, literature, 
and politics. 

In the campaign of 1884, Roosevelt was for 
Edmunds for President and against Blaine and 
Arthur. He headed the New York delegation 
to the National Convention. The Chairman 
of the National Committee nominated Powell 
Clayton, of Arkansas, for temporary chairman. 
Henry Cabot Lodge nominated John R. Lynch, 
a colored man, of Mississippi. In speaking to 
this nomination, Theodore Roosevelt said: — 

I trust that the motion made by the gentleman 
from Massachusetts [Mr. Lodge] will be adopted, 
and that we will select as Chairman of this Conven- 
tion that representative Republican, Mr. Lynch, of 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 13 

Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, it has been said by the 
distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Air. 
Stewart] that it is without precedent to reverse the 
action of the National Committee. Who has not 
known numerous instances where the action of a 
State Committee has been reversed by the State 
Convention.? Not one of us but has known such in- 
stances. Now, there are, as I understand it, but two 
delegates to this Convention who have seats on the 
National Committee; and I hold it to be deroga- 
tory to our honor, to our capacity for self-govern- 
ment, to say that we must accept the nomination of 
a presiding officer by another body; and that our 
hands are tied, and we dare not reverse its action. 

Now, one word more. I trust that the vote will be 
taken by individual members, and not by States. Let 
each man stand accountable to those whom he repre- 
sents for his vote. Let no man be able to shelter him- 
self behind the shield of his State. What we say is, 
that one of the cardinal doctrines of the American 
political government is the accountability of each 
man to his people; and let each man stand up here 
and cast his vote, and then go home and abide by 
what he has done. 

It is now, Mr. Chairman, less than a quarter of a 
century since, in this city, the great Republican party 
for the first time organized for victory, and nomi- 
nated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who broke the fet- 
ters of the slave and rent them asunder forever. It is 
a fitting thing for us to choose to preside over this 
Convention one of that race whose right to sit within 
these walls is due to the blood and the treasure so 



14 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

lavishly spent by the founders of the Republican 
party. And it is but a further vindication of the 
principles for which the Republican party so long 
struggled. I trust that the Hon. Mr. Lynch will 
be elected Temporary Chairman of this Conven- 
tion, 

Blaine was nominated, and a serious defec- 
tion of Republicans led to the election of Cleve- 
land. Roosevelt voted for Blaine. I met him 
in New York about this time, and he told me 
that while he was opposed to Blaine, he did not 
feel justified in bolting the ticket as he had par- 
ticipated in the deliberations of the Convention, 
but that in the course he had taken he had 
alienated many friends and the only kind of 
political support he valued. I always felt that 
Roosevelt did right in supporting the ticket, 
although I did not do so myself. In judging of 
a man's actions, his motive must be first con- 
sidered. Roosevelt's action was governed in 
this case by what he regarded as his duty, 
which was opposed to his inclination as well as 
to what he believed to be for his interest. 

At this point should be noted the fact that 
Roosevelt showed no desire to continue in poli- 
tics. The usual course, if he had cared for a polit- 
ical career, would have been to go to Congress 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 15 

as he had opportunities to do, but he turned 
in another direction, and for the following five 
years devoted himself to literature, hunting, 
and travel. At this time he contributed a num- 
ber of political essays and sketches of sport and 
adventure to the "Century Magazine," the 
"North American Review," the "New Prince- 
ton Review," and to "Harper's." He pub- 
lished an enlarged edition of the "Naval War 
of 181 2" and wrote in 1885, in two volumes, 
the "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman," in 1886, 
the "Life of Thomas H. Benton," and in 1889 
published the "Winning of the West." 

Roosevelt's love of nature and his exultation 
in physical life is well illustrated in the quota- 
tion from Browning with which "Ranch Life 
and the Hunting Trail" opens: — 

**0h, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste; 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. 
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock to 

rock. 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir tree, the cool 

silver shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the 

bear, — 
And the sleep in the dried river channel where bulrushes 

tell 
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living.'* 



i6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

One can understand how such a spirit could 
enjoy a trip down the Little Missouri during the 
spring freshet. I happened to meet Roosevelt 
going West in February, 1886. Evidently I 
had sent him a newspaper clipping, for I find 
the following letter from him: — 

Elkhorn Ranch, 

Medora, Dakota, 

Mar. 27, '86. 

The slip of paper was very amusing; I counted my- 
self lucky to meet you as I did. I am now about start- 
ing off down the river, which is swollen and full of 
ice, to go to Mandan about three hundred miles off. 

It was on this trip, I Imagine, that Roose- 
velt, acting as deputy sheriff, and his associates 
chased down the river three men who had stolen 
his boat. They overtook the men, and finally, 
after a journey of great hardship, delivered the 
thieves into the hands of the sheriff. 

It was Roosevelt's experience with frontier 
life that led to his writing the "Winning of the 
West," In the preface of which he said: — 

In conclusion, I would say that it has been to me 
emphatically a labor of love to write of the great 
deeds of the border people. I am not blind to their 
manifold shortcomings, nor yet am I Ignorant of their 
many strong and good qualities. For a number of 
years I spent most of my time on the frontier, and 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 17 

lived and worked like any other frontiersman. The 
wild country in which we dwelt and across which we 
wandered was in the Far West; and there were, of 
course, many features in which the life of a cattleman 
on the great plains and among the Rockies differed 
from that led by a backwoodsman in the Alleghany 
forests a century before. Yet the points of resem- 
blance were far more numerous and striking. We 
guarded our herds of branded cattle and shaggy 
horses, hunted bear, bison, elk, and deer, establishing 
civil government, and put down evildoers, white and 
red, on the banks of the Little Missouri, and among 
the wooded, precipitous foothills of the Bighorn, ex- 
actly as did the pioneers who a hundred years previ- 
ously built their log cabins beside the Kentucky or in 
the valleys of the Great Smokies. The men who have 
shared in the fast vanishing frontier life of the present 
feel a peculiar sympathy with the already long van- 
ished frontier life of the past. 

What lover of nature can fail to be thrilled by 
the introduction to "The Wilderness Hunter"? 

In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is, 
after all, but a part of the whole. The free, self- 
reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stal- 
wart democracy; the wild surroundings, the grand 
beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the ways 
and habits of the woodland creatures — all these 
unite to give to the career of the wilderness hunter 
its peculiar charm. 

The chase is among the best of all national pas- 
times; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the 



i8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the 
possession of no other qualities can possibly atone. 
No one but he who has partaken thereof can under- 
stand the keen delight of hunting in lonely lands. 
For him is the joy of the horse well ridden and the 
rifle well held; for him the long days of toil and hard- 
ship, resolutely endured and crowned at the end with 
triumph. In after years, there shall come forever to 
his mind the memory of endless prairies shimmering 
in the bright sun; of vast snow-clad wastes lying deso- 
late under gray skies; of the melancholy marshes, of 
the rush of mighty rivers; of the breath of the ever- 
green forest in summer; of the crooning of ice-armored 
pines at the touch of the winds of winter; of cataracts 
roaring between hoary mountain masses; of all the 
innumerable sights and sounds of the wilderness; of 
its immensity and mystery and of the silences that 
brood in its still depths. 

In the fall of 1886, he was the Republican 
candidate for Mayor of New York against 
Henry George, the Labor candidate, and Abram 
S. Hewitt, the nominee of the United Democ- 
racy, who was elected. 

On May 10, 1889, Roosevelt was appointed 

a member of the United States Civil Service 

Commission, and, to quote his own words some 

time later: — 

Have been up to my ears In one unending fight to 
take and keep the Civil Service out of the hands of 
the politicians; and I may say without question that 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 19 

during this year the law has been observed in the 
classified service under our charge more rigidly and 
impartially than ever before. 

President Harrison, who was not given to 
exuberance of expression, said of him: — 

If he had no other record than his service as an em- 
ployee of the Civil Service Commission, he would be 
deserving of the nation's gratitude and confidence. 

Roosevelt continued as Civil Service Com- 
missioner until April, 1895, a period of nearly 
six years. It was not a place that any one with 
any political ambition would have sought, and 
would, I think, be commonly regarded as a 
veritable graveyard for any political aspira- 
tions. I remember seeing In the New York 
"Tribune," about this time, an Interview with 
Roosevelt In which he said that he might like 
to go Into politics, but that he had no constit- 
uency, by which I understood him to mean 
that his prolonged absence from New York had 
put him completely out of touch with political 
affairs there. It Is reasonably clear that at this 
time and during his term as Civil Service Com- 
missioner, Roosevelt had no expectation of en- 
tering politics. Meantime, In November, 1890, 
he had published a history of the City of New 



20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

York; in 1893, In two volumes, "The Wilder- 
ness Hunter"; and in April, 1895, in conjunc- 
tion with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, "Hero 
Tales from American History." 

In April, 1895, Roosevelt was appointed Po- 
lice Commissioner in the City of New York, 
and continued in that office until April, 1897. 
Again he filled a position which led nowhere in 
politics, however great the opportunities for ser- 
vice that it offered, evidence that opportunity for 
service without the slightest regard for politi- 
cal advancement was the controlling motive of 
Roosevelt's life. 

His sense of humor, often light, sometimes 
grim, but always palpably present or lurking 
in the near background is well illustrated in an 
article on the Vice-Presidency, written in Sep- 
tember, 1896; speaking of the Southern Popu- 
lists, he said: — 

They distrust anything they cannot understand; 
and as they understand but little, this opens a very 
wide field for distrust. They are apt to be emotion- 
ally religious. If not, they are then at least atheists 
of an archaic type. Refinement and comfort they are 
apt to consider quite as objectionable as immorality. 
That a man should change his clothes in the evening, 
that he should dine at any other hour than noon, 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 21 

impress these good people as being symptoms of de- 
pravity instead of merely trivial. A taste for learning 
and cultivated friends, and a tendency to bathe fre- 
quently, cause them the deepest suspicion. . . . Sen- 
ator Tillman, the great Populist, or Democratic, 
orator from South Carolina, possesses an untram- 
meled tongue any middle-of-the-road man would envy; 
and, moreover, Mr. Tillman's brother has been fre- 
quently elected to Congress upon the issue that he 
never wore either an overcoat or an undershirt, an 
issue which any Populist statesman finds readily 
comprehensible, and which he would recognize at 
first glance as being strong before the people. 

■ In April, 1897, he was appointed Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy by President IMcKinley, 
John D. Long, of Massachusetts, being Secre- 
tary. This was a most congenial place for 
Roosevelt, and he devoted himself with his cus- 
tomary energy to the duties of his office. He 
not only got the navy ready for war, but, to 
put it mildly, did not shrink from the then im- 
pending conflict with Spain. Against the urgent 
advice of most of his friends, he resigned his 
position May 6, 1898, and entered the mili- 
tary service as lieutenant-colonel,^ First United 

^ He declined the Colonelcy. " Fortunately," said Roosevelt, 
" I was wise enough to tell the Secretary that while I believed I 
could learn to command the regiment in a month, yet that it 
was just this very month which I could not afford to spare, and 



22 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

States Cavalry Volunteers, "The Rough Rid- 
ers," organized by Colonel Leonard Wood and 
himself. Secretary Long said of him : — 

He was heart and soul in his work. His typewriters 
had no rest. He, like most of us, lacks the rare knack 
of brevity. He was especially stimulating to the 
younger officers who gathered about him and made 
his office as busy as a hive. He was especially helpful 
in the purchasing of ships and in every line where he 
could push on the work of preparation for war. Al- 
most as soon, however, as it was declared, he resigned 
the assistant-secretaryship of the navy to accept the 
lieutenant-colonelcy of the Rough Rider regiment in 
the army. Together with many of his friends, I urged 
him strenuously to remain in the navy, arguing that 
he would there make a signal reputation, and that to 
go into the army would be only to fight mosquitoes 
on the Florida sands or fret in camp at Chickamauga. 
How right he was in his prognosis and how wrong 
we were in ours, the result has shown. He took the 
straight course to fame, to the governorship of New 
York and to the presidency of the United States. He 
has the dash of Henry of Navarre without any of his 
vices. His room in the Navy Department after his 
decision to enter the army, which preceded for some 
time his resignation as Assistant Secretary, was an 
interesting scene. It bubbled over with enthusiasm, 
and was filled with bright young fellows from all over 
the country, college graduates and old associates 

that, therefore, I would be quite content to go as Lieutenant- 
Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel." 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 23 

from the Western ranches, all eager to serve with 
Roosevelt. The Rough Rider uniform was in evi- 
dence; it climbed the steps of the Navy Department; 
it filled the corridors; guns, uniforms, all sorts of 
military traps, and piles of papers littered the Assist- 
ant Secretary's room, but it was all the very inspira- 
tion of young manhood. 

This is the reason he gave for his action: — 
While my party was in opposition, I had preached 
with all the fervor and zeal I possessed our duty to in- 
tervene in Cuba and to take this opportunity of driv- 
ing the Spaniard from the Western world. Now that 
my party had come to power, I felt it incumbent on 
me, by word and deed, to do all I could to secure the 
carrying-out of the policy in which I so heartily be- 
lieved; and from the beginning, I had determined 
that, if a war came, somehow or other, I was going 
to the front. 

Meantime he had published In October, 1897, 
his "American Ideals" in two volumes, and In 
April, 1898, the "Life of Gouverneur Morris." 

Of the Cuban campaign It is enough to say 
here that Roosevelt was commended for gal- 
lantry and promoted colonel, and was In com- 
mand at San Juan Plill. I once asked him what 
act of his life or what experience had given him 
the most pleasure and satisfaction. He re- 
flected for a moment, and then replied, "The 
charge up San Juan Hill." 



24 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I do not mean to suggest that he attached 

undue importance to that battle. Speaking at 

Chattanooga in 1902 he said: — 

Compared to the giant death wrestle that reeled 
over the mountains roundabout this city, the fight at 
Santiago was the merest skirmish; but the spirit In 
which we handled ourselves there, I hope, was the 
spirit in which we have to face our duties as citizens 
if we are to make this Republic what it must be made. 

On July 27, 1898, Hay wrote to Roosevelt:^ 

I am afraid I am the last of your friends to con- 
gratulate you on the brilliant campaign which now 
seems drawing to a close, and in which you have 
gained so much experience and glory. When the war 
began I was like the rest; I deplored your place in the 
navy, where you were so useful and so acceptable. 
But I knew it was idle to preach to a young man. 
You obeyed your own daemon, and I imagine we older 
fellows will all have to confess that you were in the 
right. As Sir Walter wrote: — 

"One crowded hour of glorious life 
Is worth an age without a name,'* 

You have written your name on several pages of 
your country's history, and they are all honorable to 
you and comfortable to your friends. 

A characteristic remark was reported of 
Roosevelt upon his return from Cuba. As the 
Transport cast anchor off Montauk some one 

* The quotations from John Hay's Letters are as they appear 
in Mr. William Roscoe Thayer's Life and Letters of John Hay. 
Boston, 1915. 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 25 

called out and asked him how he was feeling ■ 

"Disgracefully well," was his reply. He seemed 
to think that when so many were returning sick 
and weak, it was not creditable to him to be in 
such good physical condition. 

He was mustered out at Camp Wickoff, Long 
Island, September 15, 1898. 

Certainly, up to this point, there has been dis- 
closed no settled purpose in Roosevelt's life, 
excepting to be hard at work in some field of 
activity — physical or mental. And now he was 
to enter politics again, not by his own volition, 
but because of the desire of others. A Repub- 
lican candidate for Governor of New York was 
wanted who could carry the State. Roosevelt 
with his military record was the only man who 
could do it. The politicians took him, not be- 
cause they wanted him, but because they needed 
him, and he was elected for the term beginning 
January i, 1899, and ending December 31, 1900. 
Speaking of the negotiations which led up to 
his nomination, Roosevelt says in his "Autobi- 
ography'': — 

It was Mr. Quigg who called on me at Montauk 
Point to sound me about the governorship; Mr. Piatt 
being by no means enthusiastic over Mr. Qulgg's 



26 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

mission, largely because he disapproved of the Span- 
ish War and of my part in bringing it about. Mr. 
Quigg saw me in my tent, in which he spent a couple 
of hours with me, my brother-in-law, Douglas Rob- 
inson, being also present. Quigg spoke very frankly 
to me, stating that he earnestly desired to see me 
nominated and believed that the great body of Re- 
publican voters in the State so desired, but that the 
organization and the State Convention would finally 
do what Senator Piatt desired. He said that county 
leaders were already coming to Senator Piatt, hinting 
at a close election, expressing doubt of Governor 
Black's availability for reelection, and asking why it 
would not be a good thing to nominate me; that now 
that I had returned to the United States this would 
go on more and more all the time, and that he [Quigg] 
did not wish that these men should be discouraged 
and be sent back to their localities to suppress a rising 
sentiment in my favor. For this reason he said that 
he wanted from me a plain statement as to whether 
or not I wanted the nomination, and as to what 
would be my attitude toward the organization in the 
event of my nomination and election, — whether or 
not I would *'make war" on jMr. Piatt and his friends, 
or whether I would confer with them and with the 
organization leaders generally, and give fair consider- 
ation to their point of view as to party policy and 
public interest. He said he had not come to make me 
any offer of the nomination, and had no authority 
to do so, nor to get any pledges or promises. He 
simply wanted a frank definition of my attitude 
toward existing party conditions. 

To this I replied that I should like to be nominated, 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 27 

and if nominated would promise to throw myself into 
the campaign with all possible energy. I said that I 
should not make war on Mr. Piatt or anybody else 
if war could be avoided; that what I wanted was to 
be Governor and not a faction leader; that I certainly 
would confer with the organization men, as with 
everybody else who seemed to me to have knowledge 
of and interest in public affairs, and that as to Mr. 
Piatt and the organization leaders, I would do so in 
the sincere hope that there might always result har- 
mony of opinion and purpose; but that while I would 
try to get on well with the organization, the organiza- 
tion must with equal sincerity strive to do what I 
regarded as essential for the public good; and that in 
every case, after full consideration of what every- 
body had to say who might possess real knowledge of 
the matter, I should have to act finally as my own 
judgment and conscience dictated and administer 
the State Government as I thought it ought to be 
administered. Quigg said that this was precisely 
what he supposed I would say, that it was all any- 
body could expect, and that he would state it to 
Senator Piatt precisely as I had put it to him, which 
he accordingly did; and, throughout my term as 
Governor, Quigg lived loyally up to our understand- 
ing. 

Letter from Roosevelt to Quigg 

Camp Wickoff, 

MoNTAUK Point, L.I., 

Sept. 12, 1898. 

I hope that Saturday will do with the mustering-out. 
It is a simple impossibility for me to get in before. 
As I telegraphed, your representation of what I 



28 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

said was substantially right; that is, it gave just the 
spirit. But I don't like the wording of some of your 
sentences. At first, on account of this, I hesitated 
how to reply; but finally came to the conclusion that 
the last sentence of your "report" covered the whole 
matter sufficiently. I shan't try to go over your dif- 
ferent sentences in detail; but for instance, instead of 
saying that I would not "wish" to be a figurehead 
you should have used the word "consent," and there 
are various other similar verbal changes to which I 
think you would agree. Then I wish you could have 
brought out the fact that these statements were not 
in the nature of bids for the nomination, or of pledges 
by me, and that you made no eff"ort to exact any 
pledges, but that they were statements which I freely 
made when you asked me what my position would 
be if nominated and elected (you having already 
stated that you wished me nominated and elected). 
However, I need not go into the matter more in de- 
tail, and I am not sure that it is necessary for me to 
write this at all, for I know that you did not in any 
way wish to represent me as willing to consent to act 
otherwise than in accordance with my conscience; 
indeed, you said you knew that I would be incapable 
of acting save with good faith to the people at large, 
to the Republicans of the United States, and to the 
New York Republican organizations; and this seems 
to about cover it. 

P.S. In short, I want to make clear that there was 
no question of pledges or promises, least of all a ques- 
tion of bargaining for the nomination; but that I 
promptly told you the position I would take if I was 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 29 

elected Governor and suggested what I thought it 
would be best for both Senator Piatt and myself to 
do so as to prevent the chance of any smash-up, 
which would be disastrous to the welfare of the party 
and equally disastrous from the standpoint of good 
government. I was not making any agreement as to 
what I would do on consideration that I received the 
nomination; I was stating the course which I thought 
it would be best to follow, for the sake of the party, 
and for the sake of the State — both considerations 
outweighing infinitely the question of my own nomi- 
nation. 

During his term as Governor, he published 
"The Rough Riders," ^^The Strenuous Life," 
and the "Life of Oliver Cromwell." Roosevelt 
had the confidence of the people in larger meas- 
ure than any other Governor of New York for 
years. He promised to pursue Republican with 
even greater avidity than Democratic rascals, 
and kept his promise by making a Democratic 
lawyer the prosecutor of those involved in the 
Canal frauds. Roosevelt carried out the prin- 
ciple which he expressed in his inaugural ad- 
dress, that 

in the long run, he serves his party best who most 
helps to make it instantly responsive to every need 
of the people, and to the highest demands of that 
spirit which tends to drive us onward and upward. 



30 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

He demanded the repeal of the law enacted in 
the administration of his predecessor. Governor 
Black, for the purpose of taking the "starch" 
out of the Civil Service law and showed little 
regard for the spoilsmen. A paper constantly 
critical of him said: "Roosevelt is probably the 
only Republican in the State capable of an act 
so contrary to party amenities as this." 

He was strong for the enforcement of the 
state law regulating the employment of women 
and children in factories and to prevent exces- 
sive hours of labor on surface railroads. The 
Civil Service and Labor portions of his first mes- 
sage were the most prominent. He favored the 
equipment of the National Guards with mod- 
ern arms, the substitution of biennial for annual 
sessions of the Legislature, and the extension 
of the area within which suffrage could be exer- 
cised by women, particularly in reference to the 
schools.^ He searched the State for the best 
men he could find, urged legislation in the best 
interests of the people and put every stumbling- 
block possible in the way of bad legislation. He 
defied both machines. 

1 Someyearslater (1908), Roosevelt said, "Personally I believe 
in Woman's Suffrage, but I am not an enthusiastic advocate of it 
because I do not regard it as a very important matter." 



FROM 1876 TO 190 1 31 

His message In January, 1900, dealt largely 
with the subject of taxation. He suggested that 
trusts should be subject to the law of publicity, 
and that 

where a trust becomes a monopoly, the State has 
an Immediate right to Interfere. Care should be 
taken not to stifle enterprise or disclose any facts of a 
business that are essentially private, but the State, 
for the protection of the public, should exercise the 
right to inspect, to examine thoroughly all the work- 
ings of great corporations, just as is now done with 
banks; and wherever the Interests of the public 
demand it, It should publish the results of Its exami- 
nation. Then, if there are inordinate profits, com- 
petition or public sentiment will give the public the 
benefit in lowered prices; and if not, the power of tax- 
ation remains. 

The principle of government regulation and 
not the disintegration of large corporations is 
one that he has always adhered to. 

Much was made by his critics of the fact that 
Roosevelt occasionally "had breakfast with 
Piatt,'* as evidence that he was under the domi- 
nation of the latter, then the "boss" of the Re- 
publican party in New York, and also United 
States Senator. The fact is that while Roose- 
velt was a reformer, he was not one of those 
unpractical persons who railed at the shortcom- 



32 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

ings of others and refused to take a hand him- 
self in the remedy of abuses. The role of critic 
is a pretty contemptible one unless accompan- 
ied by the desire and ability for effective per- 
formance. Roosevelt would always work with 
such tools as he had at his command, but never 
refused to work because the tools were not per- 
fect or to his liking. He has often been bitterly 
condemned by well-meaning people who stood 
on the side lines with folded hands, because he 
was working with "corrupt politicians." Well, 
he did work with them when they served his pur- 
pose for the very simple reason that he had to 
work with them or not work at all. He would 
have been delighted if the people had given him 
tools more to his liking, but as they failed to do 
this, and still demanded that the work should be 
done, Roosevelt went ahead and did it. 

In his article on *' Latitude and Longitude 
among Reformers" he said: — 

The cloistered virtue which timidly shrinks from 
all contact with the rough world of actual life, and the 
uneasy, self-conscious vanity which misnames itself 
virtue, and which declines to cooperate with what- 
ever does not adopt Its own fantastic standard, are 
rather worse than valueless, because they tend to 
rob the forces of good of elements on which they 



FROM 1876 TO 1 901 33 

ought to be able to count in the ceaseless contest with 
the forces of evil. 

This determination to do the best he could 
under existing conditions, whatever they might 
be, was always characteristic of him. 

Meantime, Governor Roosevelt attracted the 
attention of the country by his direct and fear- 
less manner of dealing with public affairs. In 
1899, Mr. James Bryce said of him, "Theodore 
Roosevelt is the hope of American politics." 

As his term drew to a close, his desire was for 
reelection to carry to full completion some of his 
plans, but in this he was thwarted, and, much 
against his will, was elected Vice-President of 
the United States for the term beginning March 
4, 1901. "Shelved,'* as many of his political 
enemies said, with keen satisfaction that the 
New York "boss" had kicked him upstairs in 
fulfillment of his vow that Roosevelt should 
not be Governor again. Roosevelt's relations 
with Piatt at this time, both as regards the 
Vice-Presidency and as to his successor in the 
Governorship, are disclosed in the following let- 
ters dated February i, August 13, and August 
20, 1900, respectively: — 



34 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt to Piatt 

February ist, 1900, 

First, and least important. If you happened to 
have seen the "Evening Post" recently, you ought 
to be amused, for it is moralizing with lofty indigna- 
tion over the cringing servility I have displayed in 
the matter of the insurance superintendent. I fear it 
will soon take the view that it cannot possibly sup- 
port you as long as you associate with me! 

Now as to serious matters. I have, of course, done 
a great deal of thinking about the Vice-Presidency 
since the talk I had with you followed by the letter 
from Lodge and the visit from Payne, of Wisconsin. 
I have been reserving the matter to talk over with 
you, but in view of the publication in the "Sun" this 
morning, I would like to begin the conversation, as it 
were, by just a line or two now. I need not speak of 
the confidence I have in the judgment of you and 
Lodge, yet I can't help feeling more and more that 
the Vice-Presidency is not an office in which I could 
do anything and not an office in which a man who is 
still vigorous and not past middle life has much 
chance of doing anything. As you know, I am of an 
active nature. In spite of all the work and all the 
worry, — and very largely because of your own con- 
stant courtesy and consideration, my dear Senator, 
— I have thoroughly enjoyed being Governor. I 
have kept every promise, express or implied, I made 
on the stump, and I feel that the Republican party is 
stronger before the State because of my incumbency. 
Certainly everything is being managed now on a 
perfectly straight basis and every office is as clean as 
a whistle. 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 35 

Now, I should like to be Governor for another 
term, especially if we are able to take hold of the 
canals in serious shape. But as Vice-President, I 
don't see there is anything I can do. I would be 
simply a presiding officer, and that I should find a 
bore. As you know, I am a man of moderate means 
[although I am a little better off than the ''Sun's" 
article would indicate], and I should have to live 
very simply in Washington and could not entertain 
in any way as Air. Hobart and Mr. Morton enter- 
tained. Aly children are all growing up and I find 
the burden of their education constantly heavier, so 
that I am by no means sure that I ought to go into 
public life at all, provided some remunerative work 
offered itself. The only reason I would like to go on 
is that as I have not been a money-maker I feel rather 
in honor bound to leave my children the equivalent 
in a way of a substantial sum of actual achievement 
in politics or letters. Now, as Governor, I can achieve 
something, but as Vice-President I should achieve 
nothing. The more I look at it, the less I feel as if 
the V^icc-Presidcncy offered anything to me that 
would warrant my taking it. 

Of course, I shall not say anything until I hear 
from you, and possibly not until I see you, but I did 
want you to know just how I felt. 

Roosevelt to Piatt 

Oyster Bay, August 13th, 1900. 
I noticed in Saturday's paper that you had spoken 
of my suggesting Judge Andrews. I did not intend 
to make the suggestion public, and I wrote you with 



36 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

entire freedom, hoping that perhaps I could suggest 
some man who would commend himself to your judg- 
ment as being acceptable generally to the Republi- 
can party. I am an organization Republican of a 
very strong type, as I understand the word "organi- 
zation," but in trying to suggest a candidate for 
Governor, I am not seeking either to put up an 
organization or a non-organization man, but simply 
a first-class Republican, who will commend himself 
to all Republicans, and, for the matter of that, to all 
citizens who wish good government. Judge Andrews 
needs no endorsement from any man living as to his 
Republicanism. From the time he was Mayor of 
Syracuse through his long and distinguished service 
on the bench he has been recognized as a Republican 
and a citizen of the highest type. I write this because 
your interview seems to convey the impression, which 
I am sure you did not mean to convey, that in some 
way my suggestions are antagonistic to the organi- 
zation. I do not understand quite what you mean by 
the suggestion of my friends, for I do not know who 
the men are to whom you thus refer, nor why they 
are singled out for reference as making any sugges- 
tions about the governorship. 

In your last interview, I understood that you 
wished me to be back in the State at the time of the 
convention. As I wish to be able to give the nominee 
hearty and effective support, this necessarily means 
that I do have a great interest in whom is nominated. 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 37 

Roosevelt to Piatt 

Oyster Bay, August 20th, 1900. 

I have your letter of the i6th. I wish to see a 
straight Republican nomination for the governor- 
ship. The men whom I have mentioned, such as ex- 
Judge Andrews and Secretary Root, are as good 
Republicans as can be found in the State, and I con- 
fess I have n't the slightest idea what you mean 
when you say, "if we are to lower the standard and 
nominate such men as you suggest, we might as well 
die first as last." To nominate such a man as either 
of these is to raise the standard; to speak of it as 
lowering the standard is an utter misuse of words. 

You say that we must nominate some Republican 
who "will carry out the wishes of the organization," 
and add that "I have not yet made up my mind who 
that man is." Of one thing I am certain, that, to 
have it publicly known that the candidate, whoever 
he may be, "will carry out the wishes of the organi- 
zation," would insure his defeat; for such a statement 
implies that he would merely register the decrees of 
a small body of men inside the Republican party, 
instead of trying to work for the success of the party 
as a whole and of good citizenship generally. It is 
not the business of a Governor to "carry out the 
wishes of the organization" unless these wishes coin- 
cide with the good of the party and of the State. If 
they do, then he ought to have them put Into effect; 
if they do not, then as a matter of course he ought to 
disregard them. To pursue any other course would 
be to show servility; and a servile man is always an 
undesirable — not to say a contemptible — public 



38 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

servant. A Governor should, of course, try in good 
faith to work with the organization; but under no 
circumstances should he be servile to it, or "carry 
out its wishes" unless his own best judgment Is that 
they ought to be carried out. 

I am a good organization man myself, as I under- 
stand the word "organization," but it is in the high- 
est degree foolish to make a fetish of the word 
"organization" and to treat any man or any small 
group of men as embodying the organization. The 
organization should strive to give effective, intelli- 
gent and honest leadership to and representation of 
the Republican party, just as the Republican party 
strives to give wise and upright government to the 
State. When what I have said ceases to be true of 
either organization or party, It means that the organ- 
ization or party is not performing its duty, and is 
losing the reason for its existence. 

The fact is that the delegates to the National 
Convention at Philadelphia, without much re- 
gard to the wishes of any one, wanted Roosevelt. 
As one of the Southern delegates said, "We 
want a candidate we can yell for." And so the 
ticket was made up, as some one has put it, — 
McKInley, "the Western man with Eastern 
sympathies," and Roosevelt," the Eastern man 
with Western sympathies." He took a very 
active part in the campaign. In October, 1900, 
he wrote me: "You have no conception of the 



FROiM 1876 TO 1901 39 

strain I am under. The National Committee 
have worked me nearly to death. I have spoken 
300 times already and my voice is on the verge 
of a complete breakdown." 

I am not a superstitious person, but I said at 
that time to a friend who has since reminded 
me of it: "I would not like to be in McKinley's 
shoes. He has a man of destiny behind him." 

Chief Justice White told me within two years 
that when Roosevelt came to Washington as 
Vice-President, he called upon him, and Roose- 
velt said that he expected to have some time on 
his hands, as the duties of his office would not 
be onerous. He asked Mr. Justice White, as 
he was then, if it would be infra dig. for him to 
attend law lectures in Washington with a view 
to being admitted to the bar. After some re- 
flection, Mr. Justice White said that he did not 
think that he could with propriety do this, but 
offered to supply Roosevelt with law books and 
to give him a "quiz" every Saturday evening. 
The offer was accepted with alacrity and the 
books were collected, but before the plan could 
be carried out, Roosevelt had ceased to be Vice- 
President. This Is a good illustration of his pas- 
sion for improving his time. 



40 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

September 6, 1901, President McKInley was 
shot at Buffalo. He died on Friday, September 
13, and Theodore Roosevelt became President 
of the United States. 

The news of McKinley's death, conveyed by 
messenger, found Roosevelt in the Adirondacks 
on a tramping expedition just returning from 
the top of Mount Marcy. A ten-mile walk, a 
rapid and reckless ride in the storm, and a flight 
of a mile a minute by railroad brought him to 
Bufl^alo, where he took the oath of office on 
Saturday, September 14. In response to the 
request of Mr. Root, then Secretary of War, 
that he take the oath of office at once, Roose- 
velt said: — 

I shall take the oath of office in obedience to your 
request, sir, and in doing so, it shall be my aim to 
continue absolutely unbroken the policies of Presi- 
dent McKInley for the peace, prosperity, and honor 
of our beloved country. 

After he had taken the oath of office, he 
said: — 

In order to help me keep the promise I have taken, 
I would ask the Cabinet to retain their positions at 
least for some months to come. I shall rely upon 
you, gentlemen, upon your loyalty and fidelity, to 
help me. 



FROM 1876 TO 1901 41 

At this time I wrote Roosevelt as follows: — 

Princeton, Massachusetts, 
22 Sept., 1901. 

I have been profoundly moved by the sad incidents 
of the recent past, but am beginning to see that 
out of this great sorrow much good may come to us. 
You cannot move eighty millions of people with a 
common impulse without bringing them permanently 
into closer sympathy. 

If William McKinley has cemented this Union 
with his blood, the sacrifice becomes a triumph. I 
have for a long time felt certain that you would be 
President of the United States by nomination and 
election. I feel so now. Meantime, is it not some- 
thing to be deeply grateful for, that you have a 
united country and a united party behind you, free 
from any bitterness that always accompanies a con- 
test for nomination and election.^ 

May God give you the strength and wisdom, as I 
know He will, to fill the great office, to which you 
have been so mysteriously called, to the lasting bene- 
fit of your countrymen. 

To this I received the following reply: — 

Executive Mansion 
Washington 

September 25, 1901. 
I thank you for your letter and appreciate it. 

Certainly no one had ever reached the office 
of President through such an unusual pathway. 
No one would seriously contend that, up to this 



42 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

point, Roosevelt had given evidence of any 
political ambition or done anything with the 
purpose to advance his political fortunes. He 
entered the Legislature unexpectedly and, as he 
thought and intended, for a single year. After 
three years of service, he voluntarily abandoned 
politics and engaged in other pursuits. He was 
called to a place in the Civil Service Commis- 
sion and as Police Commissioner, neither office 
offering the slightest hope of political prefer- 
ment. He became Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy and left the office to be a soldier. He was 
elected Governor without the slightest volition 
of his own, was forced into the Vice-Presidency, 
and made President by the act of God. There 
is lacking in his progress every element that 
usually makes for political advancement. 



CHAPTER II 

CHANGING SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL 
CONDITIONS 

I SHALL In what follows disregard the chron- 
ological order of events and treat separately 
the different topics which I discuss. Before 
dealing with the Roosevelt Administration, it 
may be well to consider some of the changes 
that had taken place in the country since the 
Republican party was founded. Not only were 
the political problems very different in 1900 
from those in 1865, but the electorate had ex- 
perienced a complete transformation. New gen- 
erations had been born and our population 
had been greatly increased by immigration 
from many foreign countries, at first from the 
north and then from the south of Europe. I 
have a theory that the Civil War had a far 
greater influence upon the political history of 
the country subsequent to 1865 than is gener- 
ally realized. Up to that time it was the great- 
est war of history; more men were engaged in it, 
and more were lost upon the field of battle and 



44 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

by disease than in any other one conflict until 
the present colossal struggle in Europe. The 
character of the men was higher on both sides 
than in any of the armies the v/orld had ever 
seen. The soldiers, for the most part, were mere 
boys. Speaking now of the North, we had, I 
believe, at one time or another, something like 
2,650,000 enlistments in the army and navy 
out of a population of 22,000,000. In Massa- 
chusetts we had 152,000 enlistments out of a 
population of 1,230,000. Suppose that three 
individuals were, through family and other ties, 
vitally interested in the fortunes of every sol- 
dier, we had out of our population of 1,230,000, 
say 600,000 who were in or followed every battle 
with the keenest personal solicitude, and there 
should be added to this number many more 
who, without any direct personal stake in the 
conflict through near kinsmen in the field, were 
engaged actively in relief work for the soldiers 
or for their families at home. 

Apply this same measure to all of the twenty- 
three loyal States, and we should find over nine 
millions of our people who were in the army or 
had a direct personal interest in its fortunes. 
Similarly, in the South, out of a white popula- 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 45 

tlon of something less than 5,500,000 with an 
enrollment of 1,100,000 In their armies, there 
were 4,400,000 persons who were serving at one 
time or another, or had a direct personal in- 
terest in the army. When these men were mus- 
tered out, being still, for the most part, young in 
years, but hardened veterans in the sternest of 
experiences and prematurely matured, they 
were scattered North and South among our 
32,000,000 people. 

At the North, through the Grand Army of 
the Republic, and at the South, through a similar 
organization, the war spirit was kept active in 
every community in the country with all the 
convictions and prejudices inseparable there- 
from. The experience on the field of battle by 
the men, and at home by the men and women 
who waited anxiously, was one never to be for- 
gotten by that generation. The rank and file of 
these great armies was speedily absorbed in civil 
life. Many of the soldiers entered public life and 
were members of our State Legislatures and of 
both houses of Congress. In the 54th Congress, 
veterans were a majority of the Judiciary, Mili- 
tary Affairs, Appropriations, and Ways and 
Means Committees. It is a fair statement that 



46 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

our industrial and political life was dominated 
by the opinions that had been formed and 
hardened during the war, and even our best 
men, or some of them, took into the field of 
business and politics the rule of conduct of the 
battlefield, that might makes right, that the end 
justifies the means. Burke says somewhere: 
"Wars suspend the rules of moral obligation 
and what is long suspended is in danger of being 
totally abrogated. Civil Wars strike deepest of 
all into the manners of the people; they vitiate 
their politics, they pervert their natural taste 
and relish of equity and justice." 

Democrats and Republicans fought shoulder 
to shoulder in the Northern armies. Never- 
theless, the North looked upon the war as a 
Republican war and upon the great war meas- 
ures as Republican measures, and so it hap- 
pened that the same spirit that animated the 
army in the field dominated the party in poli- 
tics. An election must be carried — why! to 
save the country, and in that holy cause all 
means were justifiable, that were necessary to 
attain that end. The Republican party that had 
fought the war through was the dominant party, 
its policies were carried into execution with 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 47 

the determination and precision which charac- 
terized the movements of an army. The govern- 
ment which had been saved at a fearful cost 
was to be administered by those who had saved 
it, as they thought best. To illustrate the hold 
the Republican party had on its members who 
had lived through the Civil War, I shall quote, 
from an article that appeared in one of the mag- 
azines some time ago, what a young man said 
of his father: — 

To him It was little short of treason to vote any 
other than the Republican ticket. I remember now 
the gloom In our family when we heard that Blaine 
was beaten. I think my father had an idea that 
Cleveland would undo all the achievements of the 
war. At that time it was impressed on us children 
that the Republican party had saved the Union. The 
name "Republican" became pretty nearly sacred 
to us. 

I am not now criticizing the spirit, — indeed, 
I have much sympathy with It, — I am stat- 
ing the fact. It was a great generation of men 
that the war developed. Every President from 
Grant to McKInlcy, save Arthur and Cleve- 
land, had served in the war, and Arthur was, I 
believe, prominent in the administration of the 
New York militia, and was trained in the same 



48 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

school with the other Republican leaders. Is it 
any cause for surprise, then, that the purpose, 
the discipline, the determination which domi- 
nated the Union army on the battlefield should 
have dominated the Republican party in poli- 
tics. Thus animated, it accomplished much 
and also afforded much just ground for criti- 
cism, for the very reason that some of its leaders 
carried the ethics of war into political strife, 
and, with their experience, could hardly have 
been expected to do anything else. While that 
generation lived, there was nothing of doubt 
or uncertainty in the policies or management of 
the party. When that generation passed off 
the stage, — as it did with the death of Mc- 
Kinley and Hanna, — a new generation suc- 
ceeded to the management of the affairs of state; 
a generation to which the war was a matter of 
history, rather than of experience; a generation 
that had not passed through that awful trial; 
in some ways, perhaps, a better generation. In 
others not so well disciplined; certainly a differ- 
ent one. 

It was by men of this later generation that 
our political and social questions were to be 
discussed and settled. The men of the former 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 49 

generation could not do more than save the 
country; that certainly was a service that en- 
titles them to our gratitude for all time : to them, 
other questions by comparison naturally seemed 
insignificant. Thus it happened that the men 
of the new generation, secure in their citizen- 
ship and threatened by no great calamity, were 
engaged in building a superstructure upon 
foundations which were laid under conditions 
of extreme difficulty. Meantime, the spirit of 
grim determination of those who, in sweat and 
blood, preserved the Union was succeeded by a 
spirit of unrest, of doubt, and of inquiry. That 
feeling was increasing when Roosevelt became 
President and was more clearly accentuated 
when he was nominated in 1904 and became the 
dominant force in our political life. 

If, then, we can assume that the war spirit, 
as I will call it for lack of a better name, per- 
vaded the Republican party and the North and 
insured unity of action for so many years, what 
happened to weaken it and to make discord 
where, in spite of temporary lapses, compara- 
tive harmony so long prevailed.^ I have sug- 
gested that the war spirit had not only grown 
weaker because the generation inspired by it 



50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

had passed on, but also because the weakening 
influence was being spread over a constantly- 
increasing number of people through the in- 
crease in our population, by the birth of new 
generations, and by immigration. The popula- 
tion of the twenty-three loyal States, in i860, 
was 22,044,714. The population of all the States, 
excluding the eleven States once in rebellion, 
was, in 1910, 69,572,332, an increase of 47,527,- 
618; so that even had the Northern war spirit 
continued in unabated strength it must have 
influenced a constantly and rapidly diminishing 
proportion of the people. Then, too, the spirit 
could not be inherited, for the reason that much 
of this increase in the population of the North- 
ern States was due to Immigrants who can have 
little share in our traditions. Since i860 we have 
received into the country, including the year 
1912, 24,573,337 immigrants, and most of them 
settled In the North and West. Many, no doubt, 
have returned to their native countries. Of the 
total white male population, twenty-one years 
old or over. North Dakota contains of foreign- 
born, fifty-eight per cent; Minnesota, fifty-one 
per cent; Wisconsin, forty-five per cent; one third 
of the population of Massachusetts is foreign- 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 51 

born. In 1910, there were about 13,3455545 for- 
eign-born whites in the United States. In the 
eleven seceding States about 3 per cent of the 
white population were foreign-born. In the 
States other than the eleven seceding States, 
including the colored people, about 19 per cent 
of the entire population were foreign-born. It 
is hardly necessary to multiply statistics to 
show how disproportionately small the foreign- 
born population is in the South. My conclu- 
sion, then, as to the section of country outside 
of the seceding States, is that a very potent 
influence in the apparent lack of unity in the 
Republican party In these latter days, and one 
to which too little importance has been at- 
tached, has been the weakening of the war spirit 
accompanied by a large increase in our popula- 
tion, a considerable portion of which is unin- 
fluenced by our traditions. The question might 
naturally be asked. If what I say about the 
Northern section of the country be true, why 
is it that there has been no disintegration of the 
solid South.? The answer is that the animosity 
engendered by the war was naturally very much 
more intense in the South than in the North 
and that the native population in the South has 



52 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

not been increased by Immigration to the extent 
that it has been in the North. 

Atone time or another substantially 1,200,000 
men from the Confederate States were under 
arms during the Civil War, — practically the 
entire population available for military service, 
— so that it is fair to say — assuming, as I 
have for the North, that three of the population 
of the South were vitally interested In the for- 
tunes of each soldier — that between four and 
five millions of the population of the South 
had a direct personal contact with the opera- 
tions of the war. The white population was 
5,469,462. We may go even further and say 
that the entire white population of the South 
was brought In direct personal contact with the 
experience of the battlefield. Almost all the 
battles were fought In the South, sections of 
the country were stripped bare by both armies, 
the fortunes of many great families were en- 
tirely destroyed, and very naturally, when the 
war was over, a feeling of great bitterness re- 
mained, a feeling that has been transmitted from 
one generation to another. For this reason we 
have had in the South what we would naturally 
expect to find under these conditions, a solid 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 53 

support for the Democratic party, representing 
not so much allegiance to that party as an un- 
dying hostility to the Republican party, which 
the Southern people held responsible for the 
war, for the equally cruel experiences of the re- 
construction period, and for the negro problem. 
It may be added that in the South the de- 
scendants of those who lived through the Civil 
War feel, at least some of them, even more bit- 
terly than their elders, because, as a result of 
the losses incident upon the war, they have 
been denied opportunities for education and a 
position which by inheritance is theirs, and have 
been compelled to turn for a bare livelihood to 
occupations which in the earlier days would 
have been considered ill suited to them. 

That feeling of bitterness is, of course, grow- 
ing weaker as new generations enter upon the 
duties of citizenship, but it has remained a very 
potent influence much longer than the corre- 
sponding influence in the North. 

I was a delegate to the Convention that nomi- 
nated Roosevelt for President in 1904. A por- 
trait, of heroic size, of Mark Hanna, hung over 
the platform. I said to a man who sat next 
to me, "What would happen if Hanna were 



54 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

living?" He said In reply, "He would be nomi- 
nated here to-day." Of course he would not 
have been nominated; I merely mention this 
as indicating that the "old order" which was 
incarnated in Hanna had not then passed away; 
but it was passing. I felt it in the atmosphere 
ofj the Convention. An entirely new type of 
man was President, who had no knowledge of 
the Civil War excepting that gained from books 
and from his family associations both with the 
North and with the South. When McKInley 
and Hanna died, the old dynasty fell. Roose- 
velt became President In his own right March 
4, 1905. He was not hampered by either a busi- 
ness or professional experience. I mean by this 
that he had not acquired that over-caution which 
is inseparable from either calling; the former 
leading to a dread of anything that will "dis- 
turb business," and the latter forbidding any 
action based upon anything short of legal evi- 
dence. Roosevelt, as I have tried to demon- 
strate, was intense in his devotion to the job in 
hand, whatever it might be, intent upon achiev- 
ing results, and a man who never took counsel 
of his fears. I do not mean by that to say that 
he acted purely from impulse, though his acts 



/ 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 55 

may sometimes have given that impression. 
John Hay, after he had been in his cabinet for 
three years, said of him: — 

Rooseveh is prompt and energetic, but he takes 
infinite pains to get at the facts before he acts. In all 
the crises in which he has been accused of undue 
haste, his action has been the resuh of long medita- 
tion and well-reasoned conviction. If he thinks rap- 
idly, that is no fault; he thinks thoroughly, and that 
is the essential. 

The people were ready to follow a new leader- 
ship. The former generation had successfully 
fought for the preservation of the nation, had 
stimulated the building of railroads by lavish 
government grants, had tempted settlers to take 
up lands in the West upon their own terms. 
The new generation, under the leadership of 
Roosevelt, was to fight for conservation of our 
resources, for the quickening of the public con- 
science which, once enlightened, would demand 
the proper regulation of corporations, would 
curb the tendency to private monopoly in public 
land and natural resources, and would recognize 
that labor has its rights as well as capital, and 
that neither should prey upon the other. It 
must in truth be said that the people were far 
in advance of Congress when Roosevelt became 



56 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

President and Congress continued to lag behind 
for some time thereafter. Both branches were 
still largely in control of men bred in the "war 
school" of which I have spoken. They led well 
and wisely for the most part, but looked with 
suspicion upon the new school of thought, and 
while they granted much, it was with a some- 
what niggardly hand and protesting spirit. Do 
not imagine that I am over-critical of these men. 
I belonged myself to that wing of the party. In 
safe progress there must always be those who 
press forward, the pioneers, and others of just 
as patriotic purpose who perform the perhaps 
more ignoble but no less necessary task of seeing 
that the wheels of progress do not revolve in 
the wrong direction. The conservative of to-day 
was the progressive of yesterday, the progres- 
sive of to-day is the conservative of to-morrow, 
so rapidly do our views change in response to 
public opinion. 

I must not omit to say a few words about 
changed industrial conditions between 1865 ^^d 
1900 which created an entirely new set of prob- 
lems to be dealt with. Our great industrial 
progress has been made since the Civil War, 
and it was not until 1894 that we became first 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 57 

among the manufacturing nations of the world; 
but it is to the development in the years follow- 
ing upon 1897 that I would call particular atten- 
tion, for it was then that the problems with 
which we have been and are attempting to deal 
were thrust upon us with startling rapidity. 

There had been a growing practice, among 
our manufacturers and managers of railroads, to 
have some understanding among themselves as 
to the prices at which their commodities should 
be sold, in order to prevent disastrous competi- 
tion. I shall here discontinue further reference 
by name to railroads, as I shall discuss them 
elsewhere. This led to the formation of trade 
combinations and pools, in different branches 
of business, more or less protective, the weakest 
form being a simple understanding as to prices 
and the strongest form a pool when, say, five 
companies engaged in the same industry would 
allot the sale of their product in certain propor- 
tions: one, fifty per cent; another, thirty, an- 
other, ten, and so on, aggregating one hundred 
per cent. Any one overselling his allotment paid 
into the pool, any one underselling his allotment 
received from the pool. All these devices were 
more or less ineffective. A disturbing influence 



58 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

now appeared, as a result of the decision, in 1897, 
in the Trans-Missouri cases, construing the Sher- 
man Anti-trust Act of 1890, which I shall ex- 
amine in more detail later. The Supreme Court 
in this decision held that the Sherman Act 
applied to all contracts in restraint of trade, 
whether they be reasonable or unreasonable. \ 

It followed from this decision that all con- 
tracts affecting interstate commerce which in 
any way restrained trade were invalid and 
criminal. 

It became impossible, therefore, for manu- 
facturers and others safely to enter into any 
agreement, however reasonable, for the main- 
tenance of prices, and hence they were driven 
to the conclusion that if they could not combine 
they must unite; in other words, it being a crimi- 
nal offense for A, B, and C to agree together 
to maintain reasonable prices for their products, 
they were compelled to consolidate their in- 
terests to get the protection they needed, and 
thus it appears that the decision in the Trans- 
Missouri cases had a powerful influence in has- 
tening the formation of the great consolidations 
or trusts with which we are familiar. 

And here another factor entered the field of 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 59 

business consolidation — the bankers; there- 
tofore any permanent consolidation of interests 
in the form of combinations and pools had been 
unsatisfactory because the members would not 
all keep faith, and often one stubborn person 
refusing to make any kind of a trade agreement 
would impose disastrous conditions upon his 
business competitors. It was never dreamed 
prior to 1897 that some outside power could 
step in and, if necessary, buy out all the mem- 
bers of any given industry, but this power the 
bankers, with their great financial resources, 
supplied. It was a sort of Aladdin's lamp. A 
given industry, if controlled, could make prof- 
its of $500,000 per year; the bankers stepped in 
and would offer $5,000,000 for all the companies 
involved — the individual companies could take 
cash or stock for their properties. The sanguine 
took stock, the pessimists took cash, and the 
deal was closed overnight. A certain amount of 
preferred stock was issued — -cumulative, per- 
haps, and sold to the banker's customers; the 
promoters took the common stock, and would 
at a later day perhaps sell at a good price what 
had cost them little. There was nothing neces- 
sarily immoral about this, but it created a large 



6o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

number of consolidations or trusts, as they were 
miscalled, concentrated the control of enormous 
capitalization, and made the "trust problem,'* 
which we are far from having settled yet. These, 
then, were the conditions, political and indus- 
trial, which confronted Roosevelt when he be- 
came President, and if he pressed new questions 
upon the country for consideration, it was be- 
cause changed conditions demanded their dis- 
cussion and settlement. 

These questions were forced upon him by the 
progress of events over which he had no con- 
trol. He, undaunted, did not dodge them, but 
insistently and persistently forced their consid- 
eration upon the country. 

It is not my purpose to consider in any de- 
tail all the events of the Roosevelt Administra- 
tion. If one would get a correct impression of 
a rugged coast, it is only necessary to note the 
prominent headlands and the deep indenta- 
tions, and with these alone history will be con- 
cerned. Roosevelt brought to his great task 
high ideals, prodigious industry, an active and 
an educated mind, a good deal of political ex- 
perience, and an honest desire to do his best. 

There are many subjects to which he devoted 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 6i 

much attention and of which he spoke in almost 
all his messages to Congress. Prominent among 
them was the proper method of dealing with 
the trusts. In his first message to Congress, 
delivered In December, 1901, after he had been 
President for three months, he spoke of changed 
business conditions, urged caution In dealing 
with corporations, and deprecated legislation 
in the absence of calm inquiry. He recognized, 
however, certain harmful tendencies and ex- 
pressed the opinion that combinations should 
be supervised rather than prohibited. He 
thought publicity the first essential In dealing 
with the subject — a suggestion he had made 
when he was Governor of New York. He added 
that, In his opinion, a law could be drafted akin 
to the Interstate Commerce Act which would 
give Congress effective control over these large 
corporations. 

At this point It may be well to state what I 
understand to have been the law on this subject 
when Roosevelt succeeded to the Presidency, 
to which I have already briefly alluded. 

The Sherman Act was passed July 2, 1890, 
for the purpose, as it was then stated, of ex- 
tending the provisions of the common law to 



62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

interstate commerce and to enforce them by 
suitable penalties. By the common law is meant, 
"those principles, usages, and rules of action 
applicable to the government and security of 
persons and of property which do not rest for 
their authority upon any express and positive 
declaration of the will of the legislature." 

Contracts in unreasonable restraint of trade 
had always been void at common law. The 
enactment of the Sherman Act made the com- 
mon law statute law for the United States and 
something more, and declared, in substance, 
every contract in whatever form in restraint of 
interstate trade to be illegal, and that every 
person making such contract should be deemed 
guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by fine or 
imprisonment at the discretion of the court; and 
that every person monopolizing or attempting 
to monopolize any part of interstate trade . 
should be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor 
punishable by fine or imprisonment at the dis- 
cretion of the court. 

The act as at first interpreted by the courts 
did not seriously embarrass business combina- 
tions, for the reason that it was held not to ap- 
ply to contracts not in unreasonable restraint 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 63 

of trade. As a rule, where the combination 
affected did not control the entire product In 
any given industry, it was held to be not In- 
hibited by the Sherman Act, which was passed 
with the declared purpose to extend to inter- 
state commerce the common law affecting con- 
tracts in restraint of trade. It was a well-known 
doctrine of the common law that the validity 
of contracts restricting competition was to be 
determined by the reasonableness of the restric- 
tion, and hence contracts made for a legal pur- 
pose, which were not unreasonably injurious 
to the public welfare, and which imposed no 
heavier restraint on trade than the interest of 
the favored party required, were, as a rule, held 
to be valid, both before and for a time after the 
passage of the Sherman Act. 

In March, 1897, in the Trans-Missouri cases, 
to which I have referred, the Supreme Court 
placed the construction upon the Sherman 
Anti-Trust Act (at least it was generally so 
understood) that all contracts affecting inter- 
state commerce which in any way restrained 
trade, whether reasonable or not, were Invalid, 
the conclusion of a majority of the court being 
that *' Congress has, so far as its jurisdiction 



64 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

extends, prohibited all contracts or combina- 
tions in the form of trusts entered into for the 
purpose of restraining trade and commerce." 

This decision was, as a matter of course, fol- 
lowed by the lower courts, and the trade com- 
binations which before the decision had been 
held to be legal were by it made illegal. This 
construction of the act led, as we all remember, 
to much disturbance because business men, act- 
ing in good faith in entering into trade agree- 
ments for the control of prices to prevent dis- 
astrous competition, agreements which were 
very common In the business world, made 
themselves liable to criminal prosecution. 

The gravity of the situation was widely rec- 
ognized not only by lawyers and business men, 
but by publicists and all thoughtful men In- 
terested in public affairs. Such, in brief, was 
the condition of this matter when Roosevelt 
came to the Presidency, and for this he sought 
a remedy. 

In 1902, he received the degree of LL.D. from 
Harvard, which President Eliot conferred in 
these words: — 

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United 
States, from his youth a member of this Society of 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 65 

Scholars, now in his prime, a true type of the sturdy 
gentleman and high-minded public servant in a 
democracy. 

At this time Secretary Hay, in a letter to 
Roosevelt, referring to the Alumni Dinner, 
wrote: ''President Eliot, when he sat down, 
said: 'What a man! Genius, force, and courage, 
and such evident honesty!'" 

In Roosevelt's message of December, 1902, 
he asked for a special appropriation to enforce 
the Anti-Trust Act and condemned the reduc- 
tion of the tariff as a means for reaching the 
trusts. He demanded fair treatment for both 
capital and labor, and said: — 

Exactly as business men find that they must often 
work through corporations, ... so it is often neces- 
sary for laboring men to work in federation. Both 
kinds of federation, capitalistic and labor, can do 
much good, and, as a necessary corollary, they can 
both do evil . . . attack should be made not upon 
either form, but upon what may be bad in both. 

In response to the President's recommenda- 
tion. Congress, in February, 1903, created the 
Department of Commerce and Labor, including 
the Bureau of Corporations, with authority to 
secure proper publicity. 

It may be said here that Roosevelt pressed 



66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

to a hearing, in 1904, the case of the Northern 
Securities Company, which involved the valid- 
ity of an agreement between the majority 
owners in the Great Northern Railroad and the 
Northern Pacific Railroad to consolidate their 
interests in a holding company. The relief 
sought in the courts was an injunction against 
the perfecting of the arrangement and its dis- 
ruption so far as it might have been effected, 
the allegation being that this was such a com- 
bination in restraint of trade as was inhibited 
by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The court sus- 
tained the contention and held that this was 
an arrangement to avoid competition and to 
monopolize transportation in the territory 
affected. This effectually fixed the jurisdiction 
of the Government over this class of transac- 
tions and was the purpose which Roosevelt had 
in view in pressing the suit. Some doubt upon 
this point had existed because of the Knight 
case, decided in January, 1895. This involved 
the purchase, by the American Sugar Refining 
Company, of the stock of four corporations 
engaged in the refining and sale of sugar in 
Philadelphia. The court held that the acquisi- 
tion of the stock did not bring the case within 



CHANGING CONDITIONS ej 

the provisions of the Sherman Act, and evi- 
dently disregarded the purpose, which was to 
effect a monopoly in the sale of sugar. It will 
be noticed that this narrow construction of the 
act, which was thought at the time to defeat 
the purpose of the Sherman Act, was practi- 
cally abandoned in the decision of the case of 
the Northern Securities Company. 

In a speech made at the Union League Club, 
February 3, 1904, Elihu Root said of the Presi- 
dent: "You say he is an unsafe man. I tell you 
he is really the great conservator of property 
and of rights." And in support of this asser- 
tion Mr. Root spoke of the President's attitude 
toward labor unions and toward trusts, for- 
bidding, on the one hand, the unionizing of 
government employment, and, on the other 
hand, the pressing of the Northern Securities 
case which checked speculation and avoided a 
panic. 

Speaking of the Northern Securities case, 

Roosevelt once said to me: — 

I talked over the matter in full with Knox. He 
believed that the Knight case would not have been 
decided over again as it actually was decided, and 
that if we could differentiate the Northern Securities 
case from it, we could secure what would be in fact 



68 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(although not in name) a reversal of it. This I felt it 
imperative to secure. The Knight case practically 
denied the Federal Government power over corpora- 
tions, because it whittled to nothing the meaning of 
"commerce between the States." It had to be upset 
or we could not get any efficient control by the 
National Government. 

In his message of December, 1905, the Presi- 
dent reiterated his views about corporations 
and said that during the previous four years 
the Department of Justice had devoted more 
time to the enforcement of the Anti-Trust Law 
than to anything else, and added: — 

I do not believe in the Government interfering 
with private business more than is necessary. I do 
not believe in the Government undertaking any work 
which can with propriety be left in private hands. 
But neither do I believe in the Government flinching 
from overseeing any work when it becomes evident 
that abuses are sure to obtain therein unless there is 
government supervision. 

In his message of January, 1908, he said, 
what he had so often said in substance before: — 

The law should correct that portion of the Sher- 
man Act which prohibits all combinations of the 
character above described, whether they be reason- 
able or unreasonable, but this should be done only 
as part of a general scheme to provide for this effec- 
tive and thoroughgoing supervision by the National 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 69 

Government of all the operations of the big inter- 
state business concerns. 

In his special message of March, 1908, the 
President said: — 

This Anti-Trust Act was a most unwisely drawn 
statute. ... It is mischievous and unwholesome to 
keep upon the statute book, unmodified, a law like 
the Anti-Trust Law, which, while in practice only 
partially effective against vicious combinations, has 
nevertheless in theory been construed so as sweep- 
ingly to prohibit every combination for the trans- 
action of modern business. . . . The Congress cannot 
afford to leave it on the statute books in its present 
shape. 

And he added that a bill had been presented 
to remedy the situation. So far as business 
combinations were concerned, this bill provided 
that any party to a contract or combination 
might file a copy of such contract with the Com- 
missioner of Corporations, whereupon the com- 
missioner, with the concurrence of the Secre- 
tary of Commerce and Labor, might, with or 
without a hearing, enter an order declaring that 
in his judgment such contract or combination 
is in unreasonable restraint of trade. If no such 
order should be made within thirty days after 
filing such contract, no prosecution by the 



70 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

United States should He unless the same be In 
unreasonable restraint of trade among the sev- 
eral States or foreign nations. However, the 
United States might institute a suit on account 
of any contract or combination of which a copy 
should not have been filed or as to which an 
order should have been entered as provided. 
, This bill was considered by a subcommittee 
of the House Committee on the Judiciary, but 
was never reported. It will be noticed that none 
of the legal questions were avoided in this bill. 
The duty of determining whether a contract 
is or Is not in unreasonable restraint of trade 
was in the first instance merely shifted from the 
court to the Commissioner of Corporations. 
This was not a very good remedy for the de- 
fects in the Sherman Act, and I told the Presi- 
dent so at the time. "You may be right," he 
said; "we may have to try something else." 
He had no personal pride in any particular 
bill; what he wanted was a remedy. I am em- 
phasizing here his readiness to deal with the 
question in a constructive and not a destructive 
manner, and the entire absence on his part of 
hostility to combined capital as such, but merely 
to the attendant evils. 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 7V 

In the Standard Oil and Tobacco cases, de- 
cided in 191 1, the Supreme Court adopted the 
"rule of reason" in the interpretation of the 
Sherman Act. Just how far it will extend is 
uncertain, as these cases involved monopolies. 

The uncertainty as to the scope of the deci- 
sion must probably remain until a case is de- 
cided involving the control of a considerable 
percentage, say, fifty per cent, or less, of a busi- 
ness into which others are free to enter or in 
which they are actually engaged. The case of 
the United States Steel Corporation, recently 
decided in the District Court of New Jersey, 
favorably to the corporation, and the pending 
Harvester Case are of this sort. 

''A wise construction of the Sherman Act 
would seem to be that no combination required 
by the business necessities of those entering it 
should, where the monopoly feature is absent, 
and where the business is one into which others 
arc free to enter, be held to be a contract in re- 
straint of trade within the terms of the Sher- 
man Act. 

The Sherman Act as applied to railroads in- 
volves a somewhat different question, and con- 
cerning this President Roosevelt said in 1908: — 



72 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

The railways of the country should be put com- 
pletely under the Interstate Commerce Commission 
and removed from the domain of the Anti-Trust Law. 
The power of the Commission should be made thor- 
oughgoing, so that it could exercise complete super- 
vision and control over the issue of securities as well 
as over the raising and lowering of rates. As regards 
rates, at least, this power should be summary. The 
power to investigate the financial operations and 
accounts of the railways has been one of the most 
valuable features in recent legislation. Power to 
make combinations and traffic agreements should 
be explicitly conferred upon the railroads, the per- 
mission of the Commission being first gained and the 
combination or agreement being published in all its 
details. 

This seems to me entirely sound. The fact 
is that in the Trans-Missouri cases, In 1897, 
the minority opinion raised the question as to 
whether the provisions of the Act of 1890 were 
intended to apply to contracts between inter- 
state carriers, entered into for the purpose of 
securing fairness in their dealings with each 
other, and tending to protect the public against 
improper discrimination and sudden changes in 
rates, and whether that statute was intended 
to abrogate the power of railway companies to 
make contracts that were expressly sanctioned 
by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. It 



CHANGING CONDITIONS 73 

was pointed out that the Interstate Commerce 
Act was intended to regulate interstate com- 
merce transported by railway carriers, and that 
the Act of 1 890 was a general law not referring 
to carriers of interstate commerce. The minor- 
ity opinion, concurred in by four justices of the 
court, was, that there was no intention on the 
part of Congress to abrogate, in whole or in 
part, the provisions of the Act of 1887 by the 
general Act of 1890, and that the Interstate 
Commerce Act of 1887 expressed the purpose 
of Congress to deal with a complicated, partic- 
ular subject requiring special legislation, and 
that the act was an initiation of a policy by 
Congress looking to the development and work- 
ing-out of a harmonious system to regulate 
interstate transportation. There is grave doubt 
as to whether Congress ever intended that con- 
tracts for the transportation of persons or prop- 
erty from one State to another should be cov- 
ered by the provisions of the Sherman Act of 
1890. 

It may fairly be added that the power now 
possessed by the office of the Attorney-General 
over interstate transportation is one that should 
not exist. Under the penal section of the Sher- 



74 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

man Act, the Attorney-General is practically 
given the power to compel the readjustment 
of the ownership of railroad properties under 
threat of criminal prosecution of individuals. 
This power, rightly exercised by one Adminis- 
tration, might be wrongly exercised by another, 
and two individuals holding the office of Attor- 
ney-General might reach different conclusions 
upon the same state of facts. Our railroad sys- 
tems should not be at the mercy of any indi- 
vidual, but should be under the absolute control 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and 
once under such control should be free from the 
harassment and great expense both to them and 
to the Government of suits under the Sherman 
Act which can only confuse the situation, al- 
ready sufficiently complex. The transportation 
business should be and must be, if efficient, a 
government-regulated monopoly. 

Roosevelt and the Negro 

Several incidents in Roosevelt's Administra- 
tion brought the race question into great promi- 
nence. 

In October, 1901, he invited Booker Wash- 
ington to dine at the White House. The South 



ROOSEVELT AND THE NEGRO 75 

uttered angry protests and many people in the 
North condemned the act. 

The Memphis ''Commercial Appeal" said: 
*' President Roosevelt has committed a blunder 
that is worse than a crime." 

The New Orleans "Statesman" said that 
"his action was little less than a studied insult 
to the South." 

The Memphis ''Sclmiter" said that it was 
"the most damnable outrage that has ever been 
perpetrated by any citizen of the United 
States." 

On Memorial Day in 1902, Roosevelt, in his 
address, condemned lynching, which the South 
regarded as a sectional utterance. 

The President appointed Dr. Crum, a negro, 
Collector of the Port of Charleston. A great 
protest was made, and Republican Senators 
asked him to withdraw the appointment, which 
he refused to do, saying that if the matter were 
not acted upon he would make a recess appoint- 
ment. This he did. 

In a letter to a citizen of Charleston, South 
Carolina, who protested against the appoint- 
ment of Dr. Crum, the President stated his 
general principle as follows: — 



^e THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I do not intend to appoint any unfit man to office. 
So far as I legitimately can, I shall always endeavor 
to pay regard to the wishes and feelings of the people 
of each locality; but I cannot consent to take the 
position that the doorway of hope — the door of 
opportunity — Is to be shut upon any man, no mat- 
ter how worthy, purely upon the grounds of race or 
color. Such an attitude would, according to my con- 
tentions, be fundamentally wrong. If, as you hold, 
the great bulk of the colored people are not yet fit In 
point of character and Influence to hold such posi- 
tions, it seems to me that it is worth while putting a 
premium upon the effort among them to achieve the 
character and standing which will fit them. 

An article by John J. Vertrees in the June, 
1903, number of the "Olympian," a magazine 
then published In Nashville, Tennessee, con- 
tained the following comment on Roosevelt's 
negro appointments: — 

Mr. McKInley appointed negroes to office because 
they were negroes — thus making, as all perceived, 
a mere political play which was expected as a matter 
of course, and therefore gave no concern, but Mr. 
Roosevelt appoints regardless of race and because 
negroes are equal men — thus revealing a faith in 
that "solidarity" which Anglo-Saxons know can 
come only through the mongrelizing of their race. 
This Is the reason why the negro looks to the Presi- 
dent as a deliverer and the people of the South turn 
from him as one recreant and Irresponsive to the 
instincts and appeals of his own blood and race. 



ROOSEVELT AND THE NEGRO 77 

Commenting on this, the Nashville "Ameri- 
can" said: — 

Mr. Vertrees has admirably given expression to 
the Southern sentiment on the negro question. 

It was suggested at the time that Hanna 
never affronted Southern sentiment and angered 
a Republican machine in the South by naming 
educated and independent negroes for office, 
and that what inflamed the South was not negro 
appointments, but high-class negro appoint- 
ments. 

Roused by the prevalence of lynching in the 
South, the President wrote a letter on the sub- 
ject to Governor Durbin, of Indiana, upon 
which the "Nation" made the following com- 
ment: — 

President Rooseveh has put us all in his debt. 
From his letter to Governor Durbin there might well 
date a new patriotic and civilizing impulse, leading 
honest men everywhere to unite, in word and deed, 
and with every instrument of persuasion and of 
power, to put down those lawless bands that are to- 
day our greatest national danger as they are our 
deepest disgrace. 

The President was rebuked by a Democratic 
Senator for having precipitated the race issue, 
and was reported to have said that if he could 



78 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

be sure of reelection on condition of turning his 
back on the principles of Abraham Lincoln, he 
would be incapable of making the bargain and 
that he would be unfit to be President if he 
could think of doing such a thing. And yet he 
retained some friends in the South. Upon the 
occasion of his Southern tour in 1905, the Bir- 
mingham "Age Herald'^ said: — 

The man whom the people came from all parts of 
Alabama to honor yesterday is emphatically an 
American who stands for all regardless of social lines 
or the size of pocket-books. A man of heartier 
American spirit and impulses has never occupied the 
presidential chair. He is an American from the 
ground up, a true type of the best aspirations of the 
Republic; the first citizen of this glorious land of 
liberty. 

The Southern Democratic newspapers gen- 
erally expressed a change of attitude toward 
him and said that he was more popular than 
any of his Republican predecessors. 

In 1906, three companies of colored soldiers 
were discharged from the United States Army 
without honor because of the shooting-up by 
some of them of Brownsville, Texas. The guilty 
men could not be individually determined, — 
there was a "conspiracy of silence" among their 



ROOSEVELT AND LABOR 79 

comrades to protect them, — and so the Presi- 
dent 'discharged all and said of his action, "If 
any organization of troops, white or black, is 
guilty of similar conduct in the future, I shall 
follow precisely the same course." This incident 
aroused a great deal of criticism and led to an 
investigation and prolonged debate in the Sen- 
ate. The matter was finally disposed of in 
1909. A commission was appointed to deter- 
mine what members of the battalion were eli- 
gible for reenlistment. 

I mention these incidents to demonstrate that 
Roosevelt's conduct was not affected by any feel- 
ing of race prejudice. It was fair play and justice 
which the President was striving for. In one 
case it enraged the whites of the South; in the 
other, it provoked the hostility of the negroes 
North and South. He may have been wrong in 
one or in both, or in neither, but certainly no 
one can fairly question the honesty of his pur- 
pose. 

Roosevelt and Labor 

Roosevelt always showed sympathetic in- 
terest in the welfare of the wage-earner, but 
never failed to condemn the excesses of labor 



8o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

unions. In his first message to Congress, he 
said: — 

Not only must our labor be protected by the tariff, 
but it should also be protected so far as it is possible 
from the presence in this country of any laborers 
brought over by contract, or of those who, coming 
freely, yet represent a standard of living so depressed 
that they can undersell our men in the labor market 
and drag them to a lower level. 

The most vital problem with which this country, 
and, for that matter, the whole civilized world, has to 
deal, is the problem which has for one side the bet- 
terment of social conditions, moral and physical, in 
large cities, and for another side the effort to deal 
with that tangle of far-reaching questions which we 
group together when we speak of ''labor." 

He speaks of the enforcement of the eight- 
hour law, the protection of women and children 
from excessive and unreasonable hours for work, 
under unsanitary conditions, and then says: — 

When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood 
remains as the indispensable prerequisite to success 
in the kind of national life for which we strive. Each 
man must work for himself, and unless he so works 
no outside help can avail him; but each man must 
remember also that he is indeed his brother's keeper, 
and that while no man who refuses to walk can be 
carried with advantage to himself or any one else, 
yet that each at times stumbles or halts, that each 



ROOSEVELT AND LABOR 8i 

at times needs to have the helping hand outstretched 
to him. To be permanently effective, aid must al- 
ways take the form of helping a man to help himself; 
and we can all best help ourselves by joining together 
in the work that is of common interest to all. 

Subsequently, he said in another message: — 

In the vast and complicated mechanism of our 
modern civilized life, the dominant note is the note 
of industrialism, and the relations of capital and 
labor, and especially of organized capital and organ- 
ized labor, to each other and to the public at large, 
come second in importance only to the intimate 
questions of family life. 

He recognized organized labor as a necessity, 

but insisted that it must not seek to attain its 

ends by improper means, and said: — 

There is no objection to employees of the Govern- 
ment forming or belonging to unions; but the Govern- 
ment can neither discriminate for nor discriminate 
against non-union men who are in its employment. 

He recognized the necessity both of organ- 
ized capital and organized labor under proper 
supervision: — • 

The corporation has come to stay, just as the 
trade union has come to stay. Each can do and has 
done great good. Each should be favored as long as 
it does good, but each should be sharply checked 
where it acts against law and justice. 

He believed that the rule of contributory 



82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

negligence should be abolished and that the loss 
in industrial accidents should fall on the em- 
ployer. Is it not reasonable that the human 
machine, in its relations with capital, should be 
placed at least on terms of equality with the inani- 
mate machine the entire cost and maintenance 
of which is met by the employer? Theoretically, 
of course, no one will dispute that a man should 
be able to earn enough through the bread-win- 
ning period, say from twenty to sixty, to carry 
him through life, the difficulty, of course, being 
in the number of factors — illness, bad habits, 
unemployment and the like — affecting the 
efficiency of the man which do not touch the 
inanimate machine. In the case of the latter, 
the prudent owner fixes a fair period of life for 
the machine, and then charges off enough each 
year, in addition to the cost of maintenance, 
to pay for the machine within the period. The 
same rule should, as far as feasible, apply to 
the human machine. 

Roosevelt regarded his intervention in the 
coal strike, in the spring of 1902, as his most 
important act in connection with the labor 
question. It also illustrated his theory that 
when action is necessary, the Executive should 



ROOSEVELT AND LABOR 83 

do everything not prohibited by law which he 
considers for the public welfare, and that any 
doubt should be resolved in favor of action. 

It will be remembered that the strike began 
early in the spring of 1902 and continued 
through the summer and early autumn. Winter 
was approaching and a coal famine was immi- 
nent. The mines were located in the State of 
Pennsylvania, and the President had no power 
to act directly unless requested to do so by the 
state authorities, on the ground that, as com- 
mander-in-chief of the army, he must intervene 
to keep order. Meantime, he had caused the 
situation to be thoroughly investigated, and 
after somewhat prolonged negotiations, secured 
an agreement between the miners and operators 
to abide by the decision of a commission of 
arbitration which the President appointed — 
in the month of October — and the trouble was 
over. Had this method of settling the dispute 
not been agreed to, the President was ready to 
deal with the matter in drastic fashion. He has 
said that he would have requested the Governor 
of Pennsylvania to ask him to keep order, and 
that he would have then instructed the general 
in command to protect those who wanted to 



84 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

work from the strikers, to dispossess the opera- 
tors, and run the mines as a receiver. 

When the Employers' Liability Act relating 
to common carriers was declared unconstitu- 
tional by the Supreme Court, on the ground 
that it applied to intra-state commerce, the 
President, in his special message of March, 
1908, suggested that it be reenacted to meet the 
objections of the court, and that a further law 
be enacted to provide government employees 
with compensation for injury or death incurred 
In service. He also urged that child labor should 
be prohibited throughout the nation and that 
a model child-labor law should be passed for the 
District of Columbia. 

He recommended that in injunctions in labor 
disputes — 

No temporary restraining order should be Issued 
by any court without notice; and the petition for a 
permanent injunction upon which such temporary 
restraining order has been Issued should be heard by 
the court issuing the same within a reasonable time 
— say, not to exceed a week or thereabouts from the 
date when the order was Issued . . . the Issue should 
be decided by another judge than the one issuing 
the Injunction except where the contempt is commit- 
ted in the presence of the court or in other case of 
urgency. 



ROOSEVELT AND LABOR 85 

Elsewhere he expressed condemnation of la- 
bor leaders who demand that in a labor dispute 
no injunction should issue except to protect a 
property right and that the right to carry on 
a business should not be construed as a prop- 
erty right; that in a labor dispute any act or 
agreement between two or more persons should 
be legal if not unlawful when done by a single 
person, thus legalizing blacklisting and boy- 
cott, and that there should be a trial by jury 
in contempt cases. 

The President summarized his views as fol- 
lows : — 

The right of employers to combine and contract 
with one another and with their employees should be 
explicitly recognized; and so should the right of the 
employees to combine and to contract with one 
another and with the employers, and to seek peace- 
ably to persuade others to accept their views, and to 
strike for the purpose of peaceably obtaining from 
employers satisfactory terms for their labor. Nothing 
should be done to legalize either a blacklist or a boy- 
cott that would be illegal at common law; this being 
the type of boycott defined and condemned by the 
Anthracite Strike Commission. 

The President, in harmony with the doctrine 
he had always preached, ordered the reinstate- 
ment (1903) of Miller, who had been expelled 



86 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

from his union and in consequence dismissed 
from the Government Printing Office. In ad- 
dressing a note to several departments about 
union and non-union men, the President called 
attention to the findings of the Anthracite Coal 
Strike Commission, "that no person shall be 
refused employment or in any way discrimi- 
nated against on account of membership or non- 
membership in any labor organization"; and 
declared that it is "mere elementary decency 
to require that the government departments 
shall be handled in accordance with the prin- 
ciples thus clearly and fearlessly enunciated." 

In an interview with Samuel Gompers, James 
Duncan, John Mitchell, and other members of 
the Executive Council of the American Federa- 
tion of Labor, in regard to the Miller case, the 
President said: — 

I am President of all the people of the United 
States, without regard to creed, color, birthplace, 
occupation, or social condition. My aim is to do equal 
and exact justice as among them all. In the employ- 
ment and dismissal of men in the government service, 
I can no more recognize the fact that a man does not 
belong to a union, as being for or against him, than 
I can recognize the fact that he is a Protestant or 
a Catholic, or a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or 
against him. 



ROOSEVELT AND LABOR 87 

The "Nation" said, "the President has 
shown courage and statesmanship in refusing 
to let the unions hope for a moment that the 
nation will aid them in coercing unwilling work- 
men into the ranks of organized labor." 

In 1903, the President made a Labor Day- 
address at Syracuse in which he spoke of the 
community of interests among all Americans, 
and said: — 

We can keep our Government on a sane and health- 
ful basis, we can make and keep our social system 
what it should be, only on condition of judging each 
man, not as a member of a class, but on his worth 
as a man. . . . 

The line of cleavage between good and bad citizen- 
ship lies, not between the man of wealth who acts 
squarely by his fellows and the man who seeks each 
day's wage by that day's work, wronging no one and 
doing his duty by his neighbor; nor yet does this line 
of cleavage divide the unscrupulous wealthy man 
who exploits others in his own interest from the dema- 
gogue, or from the sullen and envious being who 
wishes to attack all men of property, whether they 
do well or ill. On the contrary, the line of cleavage 
between good citizenship and bad citizenship sepa- 
rates the rich man who does well from the rich man 
who does ill, the poor man of good conduct from the 
poor man of bad conduct. This line of cleavage 
lies at right angles to any such arbitrary line of divi- 
sion as that separating one class from another, one 



88 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

locality from another, or men with a certain degree 
of property from those of a less degree of property. 

And on another occasion, referring to the 

lawlessness of some labor leaders, the President 

said: — 

I urge my fellow citizens, the American men and 
women who earn their livelihood as wage-workers, 
to see that their leaders stand for honesty and obedi- 
ence to law, and to set their faces like flint against 
any effort to identify the cause of organized labor, 
directly or indirectly, with any movement which in 
any shape or way benefits by the commission of 
crimes or lawless and murderous violence. 

I think I have said enough to demonstrate 
that Roosevelt's attitude toward labor was per- 
fectly fair, and that, while recognizing fully its 
right to organize, and while active in his sup- 
port of legislation to remove from the back of 
labor every unnecessary burden, he was un- 
sparing in his denunciation of lawless or unfair 
practices. 



CHAPTER III 

ROOSEVELT AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

His Foreign Policy. The Army and Navy 

1 DISCUSS the Monroe Doctrine, foreign 
policy, and the army and navy in this order 
for the reason that the size of our army and 
navy is somewhat dependent upon the views 
held both of the Monroe Doctrine and of our 
foreign policy generally. 

Roosevelt defined the Monroe Doctrine as a 
"declaration that there must be no territorial 
aggrandizement by any non-American power at 
the expense of any American power on American 
soil." He said: — • 

We have deliberately made our own certain foreign 
policies which demand the possession of a first-class 
navy. 

The Monroe Doctrine should be treated as the 
cardinal feature of American foreign policy; but it 
would be worse than idle to assert it unless we in- 
tended to back it up, and it can be backed up only 
by a thoroughly good navy. 

As to which the London "Spectator" said: — 
If the Monroe Doctrine is not to be consigned to 



90 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the waste-paper basket, it must rest in the last re- 
source upon the naval and military power; and if 
America has not a fleet strong enough to say "Thus 
far, and no farther" to those who shall challenge the 
doctrine, that doctrine in tlie future will not prove 
worth the paper on which the Presidential Message 
of 1823 was written. 

, Commenting further upon the Monroe Doc- 
trine and our duty to our sister American re- 
publics, Roosevelt said, in substance, in his 
message of December, 1905, that under no cir- 
cumstances would the United States use the 
Monroe Doctrine as a cloak for territorial ag- 
gression, nor should it be used by any nation 
on this continent as a shield to protect it from 
the consequences of its ov^^n misdeeds against 
foreign nations, but that the punishment by 
the foreign nation must not take the form of 
territorial occupation; that it would be inad- 
visable to permit a foreign government to take 
possession, even temporarily, of the custom- 
houses of an American republic, and hence we 
might have to intervene to bring about some 
arrangement under which the obligation should 
be met; that this would be the only possible 
way to insure us against a clash with some for- 
eign power; and that this position is in the 



FOREIGN POLICY 91 

interest of peace as well as in the interest of 

justice. He adds: — 

This brings me to what should be one of the funda- 
mental objects of the Monroe Doctrine. We must 
ourselves, in good faith, try to help upward toward 
peace and order those of our sister republics which 
need such help. Just as there has been a gradual 
growth of the ethical element in the relations of one 
individual to another, so we are, even though slowly, 
more and more coming to recognize the duty of bear- 
ing one another's burdens, not only as among indi- 
viduals but also as among nations. 

This he illustrates by reference to our policy 
toward San Domingo, when a foreign nation 
was about to seize her territory as security for 
debts incurred. 

The President elsewhere described the ar- 
rangement as follows: — 

It was agreed that we should put a man in as head 
of the custom-houses, that the collection of customs 
should be entirely under the management of that 
man, and that no one should be allowed to interfere 
with the custom-houses. Revolutions could go on 
outside them without interference from us; but the 
custom-houses were not to be touched. We agreed 
to turn over to the San Domingo Government forty- 
five per cent of the revenue, keeping fifty-five per cent 
as a fund to be applied to a settlement with the cred- 
itors. The creditors also acquiesced in what we had 
done, and we started the new arrangement. ... I 



92 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

was actually assailed, right and left, by the more 
extreme members of the peace propaganda in the 
United States for what I did in San Domingo; most 
of the other professional peace advocates took no 
interest in the matter, or were tepidly hostile; how- 
ever, I went straight ahead and did the job. The 
ultra-peace people attacked me on the ground that 
I had *' declared war" against San Domingo, the 
"war" taking the shape of the one man put in charge 
of the custom-house! ... I disregarded those foolish 
people, as I shall always disregard sentimentalists 
of that type when they are guilty of folly. At the 
present we have comparative peace and prosperity 
in the island, in consequence of my action, and of my 
disregard of these self-styled advocates of peace. 

Our acquisition of the Philippines imposed 

obligations upon our Government which could 

not be discharged without the army and navy, 

and Roosevelt's position upon this subject may 

properly be discussed here. From the first he 

stood with the great majority of his party in 

favor of the acquisition of those islands, and 

said in 1899: — 

Of course there are some antl-expanslonlsts whose 
opposition to expansion takes the form of opposition 
to American interests, and with these gentry there is 
no use dealing at all. Whether from credulity, from 
timidity, or from sheer lack of patriotism, their atti- 
tude during the war was as profoundly un-American 
as was that of the ''Copperheads" in 1861. Starting 



FOREIGN POLICY 93 

from the position of desiring to avoid war even when 
it had become unavoidable if our national honor was 
to be preserved, they readily passed into a frame of 
mind which made them really chagrined at every 
American triumph, while they showed very poorly 
concealed satisfaction over every American short- 
coming; and now they permit their hostility to the 
principle of expansion to lead them into persistent 
effort to misrepresent what is being done on the 
Islands and parts of islands which we have actually 
conquered. 

He always asserted that we occupied the 
Islands for the good we could do there, and 
speaking of the anti-imperialists said: "Those 
of our people here at home who have specially 
claimed to be the champions of the Filipinos 
have in reality been their worst enemies." And 
in commenting upon their desire to grant self- 
government to Luzon under Aguinaldo, he said 
that it 'would be like granting self-government 
to an Apache Reservation under a local chief." 
He always said, however, that when the peo- 
ple should have shown their capacity for real 
freedom by their power of self-government, 
then it would be possible to decide whether they 
are to exist Independently, but that he could 
not turn loose the Islands to be butchered. 

Roosevelt here speaks of the band of anti- 



94 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

imperialists who continuously kept up their 
opposition to the policy of the Government 
toward the Philippines. I did not belong to 
that body, but I was strongly opposed to the 
policy of our Government and was in a very 
small and ill-thought-of minority in my own 
party. 

There will never be recorded a more sudden 
and revolutionary change in a fundamental 
policy of a great nation than that manifested 
in our acquirement of the Philippine Islands. 
For over a hundred years we had adhered closely 
to our continental policy of keeping aloof from 
European politics and the entangling alliances 
against which Washington warned us In his Fare- 
well Address. In a single night this policy was 
abandoned, and we placed our foreign relations 
at the mercy of the fortunes of island posses- 
sions on the other side of the globe, inhabited by 
people with whom we had no affiliations of race, 
language, creed, or color, and toward whom we 
had no responsibilities excepting those which 
we chose to assume or forcibly to acquire. This 
is not the place for any extended discussion of 
the subject, the great difficulties of which I 
appreciate. I only mention it here as having a 



FOREIGN POLICY 95 

bearing upon Roosevelt's views of our army and 
navy. 

His foreign policy was based upon a very sim- 
ple rule, which was, as he puts it, to behave 
toward other nations as a strong and self-re- 
specting man should behave toward the other 
men with whom he is brought into contact. In 
other words, our aim is disinterestedly to help 
other nations where such help can be wisely 
given without the appearance of meddling with 
what does not concern us; to be careful to act 
as a good neighbor and at the same time in 
good-natured fashion to make it evident that 
we do not intend to be imposed upon. Or, as he 
put it in another way, "Speak softly and carry 
a big stick." 

With these views of our duties, it is less neces- 
sary to say that Roosevelt always favored pre- 
paredness for war, as the best means, however, 
for securing peace, than to say that he regarded 
war as something to be avoided if possible and 
honorable peace to be desired above all things. 
On one occasion he said: — 

. . . Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the 
nation that does not make ready to hold its own in 
time of need against all who would harm it! And woe 



96 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

thrice over to the nation in which the average man 
loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a 
soldier if the day of need should arise! 

And on another: — 

A wanton or useless war, or a war of mere aggres- 
sion, is to be condemned as a peculiarly atrocious 
crime against humanity. As the world is now, only 
that nation is equipped for peace that knows how to 
fight and that will not shirk from fighting if ever the 
conditions become such that war is demanded in the 
name of the highest morality. 

He was continually preaching the necessity 
for cultivating the stern virtues always needed 
when a crisis comes to the nation or the indi- 
vidual. As he put it: — 

One of the prime dangers of civilization has always 
been its tendency to cause the loss of virile fighting 
virtues, of the fighting edge. When men get too com- 
fortable and lead too luxurious lives, there is always 
danger lest the softness eat like an acid into their 
manliness of fibre. 

That there was need for such preachment, 
I think no thoughtful person will deny. This is 
and has been for some time an age of luxury in 
America. We have been free from any great 
catastrophe; and, as a nation, have been largely 
engaged in getting and spending. Until the 
national income tax was imposed, a man might 



FOREIGN POLICY 97 

go from the cradle to the grave without realiz- 
ing that he had any relation with the National 
Government, much less that he owed it any duty. 
The national taxes were for the most part, as 
they affected the individual, indirect. There 
was no compulsory military service and our citi- 
zens came naturally to think of the nation as a 
benevolent institution from which much was to 
be expected and to which nothing should be 
given of treasure or service. That this is a dan- 
gerous attitude of mind, I think all will agree. 
Nor were the conditions surrounding the indi- 
vidual such as to develop the sterner virtues in 
those who were removed from the privations of 
poverty. The character of the early settler was 
hardened by the daily struggle with nature for 
a livelihood and with the savages to preserve 
life. This may have developed natures which 
were stern and forbidding, but it bred into our 
people some great qualities, and it was well for 
Roosevelt to call the attention of his country- 
men to the fact that if we are to hold our own, 
these qualities must be preserved: well that in 
the days of personal indulgence and enervating 
influences there should be an apostle to preach 
and practice the doctrine of " the strenuous life." 



98 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt's desire for peace was not confined 
to words. Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, 
the French pacifist, said: — 

President Roosevelt has already given four striking 
lessons to Europe — first, in having brought before 
the Arbitration Tribunal at The Hague the question 
between Mexico and the United States over the 
Pious Fund claims, while Europe was scoffing at the 
peace court which it had created; second, in obliging 
Europe to settle pacifically the Venezuelan aff"air; 
third, in proposing a second Peace Conference at 
The Hague to complete the work of the first; and, 
fourth, in now intervening to put an end to the heca- 
tombs in the Far East. 

Of the negotiations undertaken by Roose- 
velt to bring about peace between Russia and 
Japan, the London "Times" said, in August, 
1905: — 

Whatever may be the outcome of the negotiations, 
civilized mankind will not forget or undervalue the 
part Mr. Roosevelt has played in bringing them 
about. The issue rests in other hands than his, but 
the efforts he has made in the cause of peace, whether 
followed by success or failure, have won for him the 
gratitude of the world. He has done his duty as 
peacemaker faithfully and with a single mind. 

Because of these services, Roosevelt received 
the Nobel Prize of about $40,000, which he gave 
in support of a plan to establish at Washington, 



FOREIGN POLICY 99 

a permanent industrial peace committee — a 
plan which it has not been found practicable 
to carry out. 

Roosevelt was not opposed to disarmament so 
far as it was a safe thing to do; but he said on 
one occasion: — 

Nothing would more promote iniquity, nothing 
would further defer the reign upon earth of peace and 
righteousness than for the free and enlightened 
peoples which, though with much stumbling and 
many shortcomings, nevertheless strive toward jus- 
tice, deliberately to render themselves powerless 
while leaving every despotism and barbarism armed 
and able to work their wicked will. 

Roosevelt has been criticized for his opposi- 
tion to some of the so-called "Arbitration Trea- 
ties," but his reasons seem sound: — 

We, the people of the United States, cannot and 
will not surrender to outsiders the power to deter- 
mine whether or not we are fit to decide for ourselves 
what are our vital needs, and what are the poHcies 
proper for meeting these needs. In other words, 
Uncle Sam does not Intend to wrong any one, but 
neither does he intend to bind himself, If his pocket is 
picked, his house burglarized, or his face slapped, to 
*' arbitrate" with the wrong-doer; and as long as he 
does not intend so to bind himself, it would be offen- 
sive hypocrisy for him to say that he will so bind 
himself. 



loo THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

He was not disposed to rest In any position 
of false security or to make or permit to be 
made promises that could not be kept. His 
course may not have been satisfactory to those 
who prefer to see things as they would have 
them and not as they are, but It was honest. 
He was continually commenting upon the na- 
tional short-sightedness In falling to provide for 
the efficiency of the army in times of peace and 
had little patience with those who feared that 
this would tend to militarism. He said: — 

Declamation against militarism has no more seri- 
ous place than declamation against Baal or Astaroth. 

The only way to have men ready in time of war, 
is to teach them in time of peace. 

He believed in teaching men and boys to 
shoot straight. He said: — 

We should establish shooting-galleries in all the 
large public and military schools; should maintain 
national target ranges in different parts of the coun- 
try and should in every way encourage the formation 
of rifle clubs throughout all parts of the land. The 
little Republic of Switzerland offers us an excellent 
example In all matters connected with building up an 
efficient citizen soldiery. 

The training of our young men in field maneuvers 
and in marksmanship, as Is done In Switzerland, and 
to a slightly less extent In Australia, would be of 



FOREIGN POLICY loi 

immense advantage to the physique and morale of 
our whole population. It would not represent any 
withdrawal of our population from civil pursuits, 
such as occurs among the great military states of the 
European Continent. 

Roosevelt was always impatient of humbug 

and " hifalutinV' particularly in connection with 

practical matters. For instance, when recently 

some Senator said that we needed no regular 

army, because in the event of war "ten million 

freemen would spring to arms, the equals of any 

regular soldiers in the world," Roosevelt, in his 

whimsical way said: — 

If the Senator's ten million men sprang to arms at 
this moment, they would have at the outside some 
four hundred thousand modern rifles to which to 
"spring." Perhaps six hundred thousand more could 
"spring" to squirrel pieces and fairly good shotguns. 
The remaining nine million men would have to 
"spring" to axes, scythes, hand-saws, gimlets, and 
similar arms. 

He was always particularly Interested in the 
navy. He had written a book about it from 
which I have quoted, had been Assistant Secre- 
tary, and had much technical knowledge of the 
subject. He urged that the upbuilding of the 
navy, begun in 1882, be continued, and that a 
national naval reserve be established. During 



102 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

his Administration, we had naval maneuvers 
on a large scale for the first time in our history, 
with constantly increasing attention paid to 
gunnery. As Roosevelt tersely put the fact, 
"In battle the only shots that count are the 
shots that hit." 

, He took the very sensible view that our ships 
must be at sea in order that the men and equip- 
ment might be kept at the highest point of effi- 
ciency. 

On one occasion he said: — 

No fighting ship of the first class should ever be 
laid up save for necessary repairs; and her crew should 
be kept constantly exercised on the high seas, so that 
she may stand at the highest point of perfection.. . 

No one can fairly dispute the soundness of 
this position. One might say that we should have 
no ships and make an argument, but no one 
could defend the position that we should have 
inefficient ships. 

A battleship is a machine; not only that, 
but a very complicated machine. Every one 
knows, who knows anything of the subject, 
that a machine of any kind to be kept efficient 
must be run and run constantly, not inter- 
mittently. A machine which to the eye of the 



FOREIGN POLICY 103 

novice Is complete is very far from being so; 
it is not completed until it is efHcient, and that 
can only be when every part is working per- 
fectly under the guidance of experienced and 
trained human intelligence. This requires con- 
stant use. A ship that is not efficient is worse 
than no ship, because it holds out the promise 
of offense or defense that cannot be kept, just 
as a battery that can't shoot straight might just 
as well be without ammunition. It was with 
this end in view — to keep our fleet efficient — 
that it was sent to the Pacific and then around 
the world. Both events were sharply criticized, 
but both were abundantly justified by those who 
apply the rules of ordinary common sense to a 
practical question. The fleet reached Hamp- 
ton Roads, at the conclusion of its 42,000-mile 
cruise, on February 21, 1909. Upon this occa- 
sion President Roosevelt made the following 
speech : — 

Admiral Sperry, officers and men of the battle 
fleet: Over a year has passed since you steamed out 
of this harbor, and over the world's rim, and this 
morning the hearts of all who saw you thrilled with 
pride as the hulls of the mighty warships lifted above 
the horizon. You have been in the northern and 
southern hemispheres; four times you have crossed 



104 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the line; you have steamed through all the great 
oceans; you have touched the coast of every conti- 
nent. Ever your general course has been westward; 
and now you come back to the port from which you 
set sail. This is the first battle fleet that has ever 
circumnavigated the globe. Those who perform the 
feat again can but follow in your footsteps. 

The little torpedo flotilla went with you around 
South America, through the Straits of Magellan, to 
our own Pacific Coast. The armored cruiser squadron 
met you and left you again when you were halfway 
round the world. You have falsified every prediction 
of the prophets of failure. In all your long cruise not 
an accident worthy of mention has happened to a 
single battleship, nor yet to the cruisers or torpedo 
boats. You left this coast in a high state of battle 
efficiency, and you returned with your efficiency in- 
creased, better prepared than when you left, not only 
in personnel, but even in material. 

During your world cruise you have taken your 
regular gunnery practice, and skilled though you 
were before with the guns, you have grown more 
skillful still and through practice you have improved 
in battle tactics, though here there is more room for 
improvement than in your gunnery. Incidentally, I 
suppose, I need hardly say that one measure of your 
fitness must be your clear recognition of the need 
always steadily to strive to render yourselves more 
fit; if you ever grow to think that you are fit enough, 
you can make up your minds that from that moment 
you will begin to go backward. 

As a war machine, the fleet comes back in better 
shape than it went out. In addition, you, the officers 



FOREIGN POLICY 105 

and men of this formidable fighting force, have shown 
yourselves the best of all possible ambassadors and 
heralds of peace. Wherever you have landed you 
have borne yourselves so as to make us at home 
proud of being your countrymen. You have shown 
that the best type of fighting men of the sea knows 
how to appear to the utmost possible advantage when 
his business is to behave himself on shore and to make 
a good impression in a foreign land. 

When I left the Presidency [said Roosevelt], there 
was not a cloud on the horizon — and one of the 
reasons why there was not a cloud on the horizon 
was that the American battle fleet had just returned 
from its sixteen months' trip around the world, a 
trip such as no other battle fleet of any power had 
ever taken, which it had not been supposed could be 
taken, and which exercised a greater influence for 
peace than all the peace congresses of the last fifty 
years. With Lowell I most emphatically believe that 
peace is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of 
cowards; and the fool and the weakling are no im- 
provement on the coward. 

In his special message of April 14, 1908, Roose- 
velt again urged upon Congress the need of pro- 
viding four battleships of the best and most 
advanced type — action which was recom- 
mended by the General Board and by the Secre- 
tary of the Navy. In this message Roosevelt 
said: — 



io6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

. . . Prior to the recent Hague Conference it had 
been my hope that an agreement could be reached 
between the different nations to limit the increase of 
naval armaments, and especially to limit the size of 
warships. Under these circumstances I felt that the 
construction of one battleship a year would keep our 
navy up to its then positive and relative strength. 
But actual experience showed not merely that it was 
impossible to obtain such an agreement for the limi- 
tation of armaments among the various leading 
powers, but that there was no likelihood whatever of 
obtaining it in the future within any reasonable time. 
Coincidentally with this discovery occurred a radi- 
cal change in the building of battleships among the 
great military nations — a change in accordance 
with which the most modern battleships have been or 
are being constructed, of a size and armament which 
doubles, or more probably trebles, their effectiveness. 
Every other great naval nation has or is building a 
number of ships of this kind; we have provided for 
but two, and therefore the balance of power is now 
inclining against us. Under these conditions, to pro- 
vide for but one or two battleships a year is to pro- 
vide that this nation, instead of advancing, shall go 
backward in naval rank and relative power among 
the great nations. Such a course would be unwise for 
us if we fronted merely on one ocean, and it is doubly 
unwise when we front on two oceans. ... I earnestly 
advise that the Congress now provide four battle- 
ships of the most advanced type. I cannot too em- 
phatically say that this is a measure of peace and not 
of war. I can conceive of no circumstances under 
which this Republic would enter into an aggressive 



FOREIGN POLICY 107 

war; most certainly, under no circumstances would 
it enter into an aggressive war to extend its territory 
or in any other manner seek material aggrandize- 
ment. I advocate that the United States build a 
navy commensurate with its powers and its needs, 
because I feel that such a navy will be the surest 
guaranty and safeguard of peace. ... It is idle to 
assume, and from the standpoint of national interest 
and honor it is mischievous folly for any statesman 
to assume, that this world has yet reached the stage, 
or has come within measurable distance of the stage, 
when a proud nation, jealous of its honor and con- 
scious of its great mission in the world, can be con- 
tent to rely for peace upon the forbearance of other 
powers. It would be equally foolish to rely upon each 
of them possessing at all times and under all circum- 
stances and provocations an altruistic regard for the 
rights of others. . . . 

. . . To any public man who knows of the com- 
plaints continually made to the State Department 
there is an element of grim tragedy in the claim that 
the time has gone by when weak nations or peoples 
can be oppressed by those that are stronger without 
arousing effective protest from other strong interests. 
Events still fresh in the mind of every thinking man 
show that neither arbitration nor any other device 
can as yet be invoked to prevent the gravest and 
most terrible wrong-doing to peoples who are either 
few in numbers or who, if numerous, have lost the 
first and most important of national virtues — the 
capacity for self-defense. 

When a nation is so happily situated as is ours — 
that is, when it has no reason to fear or to be feared 



io8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

by its land neighbors — the fleet Is all the more neces- 
sary for the preservation of peace. Great Britain has 
been saved by its fleet from the necessity of facing 
one of the two alternatives — of submission to con- 
quest by a foreign power or of itself becoming a great 
military power. The United States can hope for a 
permanent career of peace on only one condition, 
and that is, on condition of building and maintaining 
a first-class navy; and the step to be taken toward 
this end at this time is to provide for the building of 
four additional battleships. I earnestly wish that the 
Congress would pass the measures for which I have 
asked for strengthening and rendering more efiiclent 
the army as well as the navy; all of these measures as 
afi^ectlng every branch and detail of both services are 
sorely needed, and it would be the part of far-sighted 
wisdom to enact them all Into laws, but the most 
vital and immediate need is that of the four battle- 
ships. 

• •••••••• 

I cannot recommend to your notice measures for 
the fulfillment of our duties to the rest of the world 
without again pressing upon you the necessity of 
placing ourselves In a condition of complete defense 
and of exacting from them the fulfillment of their 
duties toward us. The United States ought not to 
indulge a persuasion that, contrary to the order of 
human events, they will forever keep at a distance 
those painful appeals to arms with which the history 
of every other nation abounds. There is a rank due 
to the United States among nations which will be 
withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of 
weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be 



FOREIGN POLICY 109 

able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of 
the most powerful instruments of our rising pros- 
perity, it must be known that we are at all times 
ready for war. 

This recommendation of four battleships was 
not adopted by Congress. I voted to sustain 
the committee which favored two, and the 
views then expressed by Roosevelt excited only- 
languid interest among the people of the coun- 
try — excepting where they aroused sharp con- 
demnation. As one paper expressed it, "The 
sober part of this nation is not inclined to the 
reckless policy of building enormous fleets." 
But be it observed, the arguments used by 
Roosevelt in 1908 are the arguments which in 
191 5 are being urged from every platform where 
** national defense'* is discussed and by those 
who have been very recent converts to the 
cause. The policy now advocated by Roosevelt 
is what it has always been. 

Perhaps the time is at hand when we should 
diminish the zone of our responsibilities. To 
accomplish this would make necessary our relin- 
quishment of the Philippines and the restric- 
tion of the Monroe Doctrine to an area essen- 
tial to the protection of our own territory. We 



no THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

could then confine our efi'orts to an army and 
navy best adapted for purposes of defense and 
feel certain that we were undertaking a task 
we might expect adequately to perform. We 
might, too, then feel that we were more strictly 
following in the pathway marked out by Wash- 
ington in his Farewell Address; which is read 
annually in both Houses of Congress for our 
guidance. 

Roosevelt always showed great interest in 
the restoration and development of our mer- 
chant marine, so essential to the permanent 
prosperity of the country. 

In his first message to the Fifty-seventh Con- 
gress, in 1 901, the President called attention to 
the condition of the American merchant ma- 
rine, and said that it called for immediate reme- 
dial action to the end that it might be restored 
to the ocean. In his message to the Fifty-eighth 
Congress, at the second session, in December, 
1903, he recommended the appointment of a 
commission to report to the next session of 
Congress "what legislation is desirable or nec- 
essary for the development of the American 
merchant marine and American commerce, and 
incidentally of a national ocean mail service 



FOREIGN POLICY m 

of adequate auxiliary naval cruisers and naval 
reserves." 

In his message at the opening of the Fifty- 
ninth Congress, the President referred to the 
report of this commission, made at the previous 
session, and expressed the hope that the views 
therein expressed or a major part of them might 
be enacted into law, and said: — 

If it prove impracticable to enact a law for the 
encouragement of shipping generally, then at least 
provision should be made for better communication 
with South America, notably for fast mail lines to 
the chief South American ports. It is discreditable to 
us that our business people, for lack of direct com- 
munication in the shape of lines of steamers with 
bouth America, should, in that great sister continent, 
be at a disadvantage compared to the business 
people of Europe. 

A bill passed the Senate, and then the House 
with some modifications. It then went back to 
the Senate for concurrence, and was talked to 
death by two Democratic Senators whose terms 
of office expired with that Congress on March 
4, 1907. 

In his message of December, 1907, the Presi- 
dent referred to the "unfortunate failure of the 
shipping bill at the last session of the last Con- 



112 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

gress," and called attention to the fact that it 
"was followed by the taking off of certain Paci- 
fic steamships." Later in this message, he rec- 
ommended "the extension of the ocean mail act 
of 1891," upon the theory "that it is the duty 
of a first-class power, so far as practicable, 
to carry its ocean mails under its own flag; 
that the fast ocean steamships and their crews, 
required for such mail service, are valuable aux- 
iliaries to the sea power of a nation." Legis- 
lation based upon this recommendation also 
failed of enactment. 

The Tariff 

Speaking of his study of political economy in 
college, Roosevelt said in his autobiography: 
"As regards political economy, I was, of course, 
while in college, taught the laissez-faire doctrines 
— one of them being free trade — then ac- 
cepted as canonical." He was one of the origi- 
nal members of the Finance Club at Harvard, 
organized when we were students to promote the 
discussion of financial and kindred questions. 
He took courses in political economy under the 
late Professor Charles F. Dunbar and Professor 
J. Laurence Laughlin, now of Chicago Univer- 



ROOSEVELT AND THE TARIFF 113 

sity. His principal textbooks were "Principles 
of Political Economy," by John Stuart Mill, 
and "Some Leading Principles of Political 
Economy," by J. E. Cairnes. Like most col- 
lege graduates, he was disposed to be a free 
trader. As he has never engaged in any busi- 
ness affected by the tariff, the practical consid- 
erations involved in the subject have never been 
brought home to him. 

When he wrote the "Life of Benton," in 1886, 
he said, speaking of the tariff: — 

Free traders are apt to look at the tariff from a 
sentimental standpoint; but it is in reality a purely 
business matter, and should be decided solely on 
grounds of expediency. Political economists have 
pretty generally agreed that protection is vicious in 
theory and harmful in practice; but if the majority 
of the people in interest wish it, and it affects only 
themselves, there is no earthly reason why they 
should not be allowed to try the experiment to their 
hearts* content. 

His position on this question when he was 
President was that he did not believe that the 
question of lowering or raising the duties as 
proposed by the two parties, in any way ap- 
proached in importance the trust or labor prob- 
lems, so called. He believed that those who 



114 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

urged upon hlm^the necessity for taking up the 
tariff knew that the tariff would be a red herring 
across the path of moral and industrial reform. 
He believed in a protective tariff, administered 
under a tariff commission like that in Germany, 
a plan which neither party would support. He 
believes that the Taft and Woodrow Wilson 
tariffs both did damage and that the result 
demonstrates that he was right In thinking 
that if he had taken up the tariff no good 
would have followed, and that he would have 
played into the hands of those who wished the 
tariff thrown open to discussion merely to avoid 
action on matters which he regarded as of in- 
finitely greater Importance. 

I think that in his political life he had very 
little interest In the subject, very likely because 
there was no revision of the tariff while he was 
President, which was perhaps fortunate. He 
accepted the party position and stated it for- 
cibly in his various messages. Had the need 
arisen I do not doubt that he would have dealt 
with the matter with his customary vigor and 
intelligence, and he would, I am sure, have lis- 
tened patiently to the great variety of views so 
tenaciously held on this most perplexing subject. 



ROOSEVELT AND THE TARIFF 115 

We have not had a President in recent times 
who so generously invited opinions from every 
quarter as did Roosevelt. He did not assume in 
advance that he knew everything about a sub- 
ject and was quick to admit his lack of knowl- 
edge. What I have said is well illustrated by the 
following correspondence. I wrote him as fol- 
lows : — 

Worcester, Mass., 
August 31, 1911. 
I fear that we are in for a very discouraging year in 
politics; the evil day of tariff revision is merely post- 
poned, and I fear that too much is expected of the 
Tariff Board. It sounds well to talk about scientific 
revision of the tariff, but it is an idle dream. The 
difference in cost of production varies from day to 
day, and cannot be definitely ascertained. It will 
vary in our own cotton mills from time to time, 
sometimes as much as one half a cent a yard, or 
more, depending upon the variation in the price of 
cotton due to natural causes. The 1908 tariff plank 
was most unhappily phrased, and the guarantee of a 
reasonable profit was almost a crime. A tariff high 
enough to insure the home market to the home pro- 
ducer at reasonable prices Is as near as we can ever 
get to an enunciation of the protective policy, and 
where this point is can be better ascertained by study- 
ing our imports than by trying to ascertain difference 
m cost of production. I do not see any escape from 
a prolonged and perhaps acrimonious discussion in the 



ii6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

next session of Congress. One discouraging condition 
is the utter lack of candor in discussing the matter. 
We hear much of the "Woolen Trust," the "Worsted 
Trust," "Cotton Trust," — all creations of the 
imagination, but creative of much unrest with the 
people. The people do not seem to realize that what 
manufacturers want is a big output at small margins. 
A man who wears a fifty-cent shirt would not com- 
plain if he knew what is the fact — that the manu- 
facturer of the cloth is happy to make half a cent on 
the two and a half yards It takes to make the shirt. 
The unhappy man who wears the shirt probably has 
an idea that the "trust" pockets forty-nine cents. If 
the Tariff Board performs any valuable service, It will 
not be In discovering the difference In cost of produc- 
tion between here and "abroad," but In putting before 
the people some facts In regard to the conditions 
under which our staples are produced which will con- 
vince the public that, take them as a whole, the man- 
ufacturers are not making unduly large profits, and 
which will lead our people to see that. In order to 
insure low cost of production, we must keep for our- 
selves the home market. Otherwise our mills will run 
on short time, our people will be idle, and our cost of 
production will be high. I had the curiosity last 
autumn to have computed the difference In the cost 
of a certain kind of cotton goods running the mill 
twelve months in the year and running It nine months, 
and found that the difference would be about three- 
tenths of a cent per yard, which is quite a good profit. 
In other words. If the Lancashire spinners send goods 
enough into New England to keep our mills running 
three fourths of the time, we will not only have our 



ROOSEVELT AND THE TARIFF 117 

streets full of the idle and suffering poor, but the cost 
of the goods we do make will be very considerably 
increased. I am not deceived at all by the popular 
delusion touching wages here and abroad. I know 
very well that the most efficient labor is the cheapest 
and that the lowest cost of production is sometimes 
accompanied by the highest rate of wages, so that in 
some lines of business, — for example, the manufac- 
ture of steel rails, — no tariff at all is needed because 
of the labor cost, but it is very important to protect 
our markets against the Importation of large quanti- 
ties of foreign goods when the foreign demand may 
be small, because that utterly disarranges the run- 
ning of our own mills and puts them on short time, 
which, as I have suggested above, not only means 
suffering for our people, but high cost of production. 
I doubt myself the wisdom of the reciprocity arrange- 
ment at this time with Canada, and for the reason 
that politically it seems to me a very unwise thing for 
a Republican President to force through a proposition 
which splits his own party in two. I think the propo- 
sition is, for the moment, popular with the people, 
but I fear that the interests affected or thought to be 
are likely to resent the discrimination which has been 
made, manifested in a willingness to legislate upon 
them before any investigation by the Tariff Board, 
when other interests are very jealously protected 
until they shall have been investigated by the Tariff 
Board. I earnestly hope that the party will not suffer, 
but profit by the policy which has been pursued, but 
I have my doubts about it. 

To which Roosevelt made the following reply: 



ii8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

September 2d, 191 1. 
That Is a most interesting letter of yours. It gave 
me some totally new ideas; and when missionary 
work is needed for me, it must be needed for some 
other people too. As regards Canadian Reciprocity, 
the trouble is, as you say, that to push It through at 
the expense of the farmers, who are restive about the 
tariff anyhow, tends to make them ready to favor 
any cut at the expense of the manufacturers. 

Upon this point of his willingness to receive 
suggestions, Secretary Hay wrote in his Diary, 
November 20, 1904: — 

, I read the President's message In the afternoon. 
. . . Made several suggestions as to changes and 
omissions. The President came in just as I had fin- 
ished and we went over the matter together. He 
accepted my ideas with that singular amiability and 
open-mindedness which form so striking a contrast 
with the general idea of his brusque and arbitrary 
character. | 

In his message of December, 1907, he said 
that the country was committed to the system 
of protection, but that every dozen years, or 
so, the tariff should be scrutinized and should 
compensate for the difference in labor cost; a 
view which, as I have said, I consider rather 
superficial. 

Some of his other comments on the tariff will 




Copyrty/il by L. i. Curtis 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, 1904 



ROOSEVELT AND THE TARIFF 119 

not stand the test of analysis; for example, he 
once said: "I am for a protective tariff that gets 
past the mill offices down into the pockets of 
the workingman." Now, the only way that the 
tariff can benefit the workingman is to provide 
him with employment. The rate of wages is 
determined by other influences, and in the long 
run must be substantially the market rate for 
labor of the same sort in the same locality. To 
say, as Roosevelt once did, — "If the wage rate 
is not proper, if the conditions of life among 
laboring people are not proper, then we recom- 
mend that the tariff be taken off entirely," — 
is merely another way of saying that low wages 
are worse than lower wages, or no wages at all. 
I do not know of any great protected product 
in the manufacture of which there is not pres- 
ent the element of competition. Where this is 
true, domestic competition insures the sale of 
the product at as low prices as are possible 
under conditions prevailing here. Roosevelt 
distinctly repudiated the erroneous doctrine 
that the trusts could be destroyed by removing 
the tariff. 



120 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Conservation 

There is no great movement championed 
by Roosevelt and urged by him upon Congress 
and the nation which will be of more lasting 
benefit to his countrymen than that for the 
conservation of our national resources, which, 
up to almost the present time, have been used 
with reckless prodigality. 

Roosevelt's interest in this subject was roused 
when he was Governor of New York and had 
under consideration the Adirondack forests, 
in connection with which he consulted Gifford 
Pinchot. In January, 1900, an agreement was 
made between New York State and the Federal 
Government by which the latter began sys- 
tematic measurement of the streams of the 
State. 

The beginnings of the conservation move- 
ment are recorded in a book on the "Arid 
Lands of the West," written, about 1880, by 
Major John W. Powell, then Director of the 
Geological Survey. Frederick H. Newell, Direc- 
tor of the Reclamation Service, printed the 
results of his investigation under the title of 
*'The Public Lands and their Water Supply," 



ROOSEVELT AND CONSERVATION 121 

in the i6th Annual Report of the United States 
Geological Survey. 

When Roosevelt became President, he re- 
quested Newell and Pinchot to prepare memo- 
randa for his use in writing his first message to 
the Fifty-seventh Congress. 

In that message he recommended that addi- 
tions be made to the forest reserves and that 
their protection be transferred from the Gen- 
eral Land Office to the Bureau of Forestry. The 
President said: — 

The water-supply itself depends upon the forest. 
In the arid region it is water, not land, which meas- 
ures production. The western half of the United 
States would sustain a population greater than that 
of our whole country to-day if the waters that now 
run to waste were saved and used for Irrigation. The 
forest and water problems are perhaps the most 
vital internal questions of the United States. 

He suggested that great storage works were 
necessary to save the flood waters and that 
irrigation works would open up to homestead 
settlement great areas of the public land. He 
also recommended preserves for the wild forest 
creatures. In October, 1903, Roosevelt desig- 
nated Pinchot and Newell, together with W. A. 
Richards, the Land Commissioner, as a Public 



122 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Lands Commission, to report to him. This was 
the beginning of the movement. The problem, 
as Roosevelt once put it, was one "of utilizing 
the natural resources of the nation in a way that 
will be of the most benefit to the nation as a 
whole." 

The subject was again referred to in the mes- 
sage of December, 1904; and in that of 1906, the 
President recommended the withdrawal of coal 
lands, which should be owned by the Govern- 
ment, but worked by private individuals under 
a royalty system; and elsewhere he favored the 
preservation of the forests of the White Moun- 
tains and of the Southern Appalachians, a pro- 
ject which was subsequently undertaken by the 
Government. In his message of December, 
1907, he favored the development of reclama- 
tion work and the stopping of unlawful fencing 
of public lands. He uttered a warning that the 
country was in danger of a timber famine and 
that the forests should be conserved. Again, 
in January, 1908, he spoke of the effort to secure 
equality of opportunity: — 

In the interest of the small settlers and land- 
owners, and against the embittered opposition of 
wealthy owners of huge wandering flocks of sheep, 



ROOSEVELT AND CONSERVATION 123 

or of corporations desiring to rob the people of coal 
and timber, we strive to put an end to the theft of 
public land in the West. 

In his message of March, 1908, he repeats a 
recommendation for the development of our 
inland waterways and the appointment of a 
permanent Waterways Commission, speaks of 
the conservation of our natural resources as 
vital for the future of the nation, and states 
that he "will veto any water-power bill not pro- 
viding for time limit and for the right of the 
President or Secretary concerned to fix and 
collect such a charge as he may find just and 
reasonable in each case." 

In December, 1908, he urges short-time 
franchises for corporations getting power from 
water rights and recommends national as well 
as state guardianship of mines and forests. He 
insists that "we should leave our national do- 
main to our children increased in value and not 
worn out," and by pictorial illustrations graph- 
ically shows the results in China of deforesta- 
tion. He recommends that the national parks 
be placed under the control of the Forest Serv- 
ice of the Agricultural Department. 

In March, 1907, he added sixteen million 



124 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

acres to the forest reservations just before he 
signed an act of Congress forbidding such reser- 
vations hereafter to be made except by Con- 
gress itself. Roosevelt's explanation of this in- 
cident is somewhat amusing. In speaking of the 
attacks upon the Forest Service, he said: — 

While the Agricultural Appropriation Bill was 
passing through the Senate, in 1907, Senator Fulton, 
of Oregon, secured an amendment providing that 
the President could not set aside any additional 
national forests in the six Northwestern States. This 
meant retaining some sixteen million of acres to be 
exploited by land-grabbers and by the representatives 
of the great special interests, at the expense of the 
public Interest. But for four years the Forest Service 
had been gathering field notes as to what forests 
ought to be set aside in these States, and so was pre- 
pared to act. It was equally undesirable to veto the 
whole Agricultural Bill, and to sign it with this 
amendment effective. Accordingly, a plan to create 
the necessary national forests in these States before 
the Agricultural Bill could be passed and signed 
was laid before me by Mr. Pinchot. I approved It. 
The necessary papers were immediately prepared. I 
signed the last proclamation a couple of days before, 
by my signature, the bill became law; and when the 
friends of the special interests in the Senate got their 
amendment through and woke up, they discovered 
that sixteen million acres of timberland had been 
saved for the people by putting them in the national 



ROOSEVELT AND CONSERVATION 125 

forests before the land-grabbers could get at them. 
The opponents of the Forest Service turned hand- 
springs in their wrath, and dire were their threats 
against the Executive; but the threats could not be 
carried out, and were really only a tribute to the 
efficiency of our action. 

Roosevelt vetoed a bill authorizing the con- 
struction of a dam across the James River in 
Missouri, for the reason that It gave to the 
grantee a valuable privilege v^hlch by Its very 
nature Is monopolistic and does not contain the 
conditions essential to protect the public in- 
terest. The bill was similar to the Rainy River 
Dam Bill of the previous spring, April 13, 1908, 
vetoed by the President, w^hich ultimately be- 
came a law because the company then agreed 
in writing to submit to such conditions as might 
be Imposed by the Secretary of War, Including 
a time limit and a reasonable charge. In May, 
1908, and again In December, 1908, there was, 
at the request of the President, a convention In 
Washington of the governors of the different 
States upon the subject of conservation, which 
did much to stimulate national Interest in the 
subject. This suggested a North American Con- 
servation Conference, and in January, 1909, the 
President, through Gifford Pinchot, asked Earl 



126 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Grey, Governor-General of Canada, Sir Wilfrid 
Laurier, and President Diaz of Mexico to send 
representatives to a conference on the conserva- 
tion of the natural resources of North America, 
to be held in Washington in February, 1909. 
This meeting suggested a conference of all the 
nations on the subject of "world resources," 
and an invitation was sent by our Secretary of 
State to forty-five nations to a conference to 
be held at The Hague. The project, however, 
lapsed with the Roosevelt Administration. 

Some doubt was expressed as to the right of 
the President to withdraw public lands from 
location. Touching this question it was de- 
cided, by the Supreme Court, in United States 
vs. The Midwest Oil Company, February 23, 
191 5, that the long-continued practice, the ac- 
quiescence of Congress, as well as the decisions 
of the court, all show that the President had 
the power. 

I happened to pick up, some time ago, an 

Arizona paper. My eye fell on the following 

statement: — 

Ten years ago farm land In the Salt River Valley 
was worth from thirty-five to a hundred dollars per 
acre. It is now worth from seventy-five to five hun- 
dred dollars. . . . 



RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS 127 

What effected the change? 

The credit should be given to the Roosevelt Reser- 
voir. . . . The Roosevelt Reservoir right now has 
more water in it than it ever had before, giving posi- 
tive insurance of crops in the Salt River Valley for 
years to come. It is three fourths full, and will be 
entirely filled before the snow stops melting this 
spring. 

A reservoir in the desert which insures con- 
stant and increasing benefit to mankind is a 
much finer memorial than the great pyramid of 
Cheops, likewise in the desert, but serving no 
useful purpose excepting to remind us of an 
ancient superstition. 

Relations with Congress 

I shall now speak briefly of Roosevelt's rela- 
tions with Congress. His first message was en- 
tirely characteristic. He gave adequate consid- 
eration to the great tragedy that made him 
President, but he was from the outset his own 
master. His messages were always addressed 
quite as much to the people as to Congress, and 
in time it came to be generally accepted that 
whenever he thought it necessary he went over 
the heads of Congress to the people. 
- In speaking of the President's power, Mr. 



128 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Bryce says, in the "American Commonwealth" 
(vol. I, p. 223): — 

An individual man has some great advantages in 
combating an assembly. His counsels are less dis- 
tracted. His secrets are better kept. He may sow 
discord among his antagonists. He can strike a more 
sudden blow. Julius Caesar was more than a match 
for the Senate, Cromwell for the Long Parliament, 
even Louis Napoleon for the French Assembly of 
1851. Hence, when the President happens to be a 
strong man, resolute, prudent, and popular, he may 
well hope to prevail against a body whom he may 
divide by the dexterous use of patronage, may weary 
out by inflexible patience, may overawe by winning 
the admiration of the masses, always disposed to 
rally round a striking personality. 

His Administration, speaking now of his serv- 
ice of seven and a half years, was fruitful of legis- 
lation by a Republican House and a Republican 
Senate. The following were among the princi- 
pal acts passed: The Elkins Anti-Rebate Law 
applying to railroads; the creation of the De- 
partment of Commerce and Labor and the Bu- 
reau of Corporations; the law authorizing the 
building of the Panama Canal; the Hepburn 
Bill amending and vitalizing the Interstate 
Commerce Act; the Pure-Food and Meat In- 
spection laws; the law creating the Bureau of 



RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS 129 

Immigration; the Employer's Liability and 
Safety Appliance laws, that limited the working 
hours of employees; the law making the Gov- 
ernment liable for injuries to its employees; 
the law forbidding child labor in the District 
of Columbia; the reformation of the Consular 
Service; prohibition of campaign contributions 
from corporations; the Emergency Currency 
Law, which also provided for the creation of 
the Monetary Commission. This was a part of 
the legislative accomplishment of these years, 
stimulated by the aggressiveness of the Ex- 
ecutive. It will be observed that most of these 
acts are to insure justice of treatment between 
man and man, to protect the weak, to curb the 
strong. 

The passage of the Hepburn Bill, amending 
the Interstate Commerce Act, was attended 
by more or less friction. The President at first 
favored giving to the Interstate Commerce 
Commission the power to make railroad rates 
independent of review by the courts. This was 
resisted by Congress, and finally the bill passed, 
embodying the three principles laid down in 
the President's message of December, 1905: 
Power in some administrative body to decide 



130 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

whether a railway rate complained of is reason- 
able and just; and, if not, to prescribe a maxi- 
mum rate, the decision to go into effect within 
a reasonable time; and subject to review by the 
courts. 

The Pure-Food Law was the result of the re- 
volting conditions shown in the Chicago stock- 
yards in a report made by James B. Reynolds 
and Labor Commissioner Charles P. Neill, 
which the President sent to Congress with a spe- 
cial message. Considerable friction developed 
between the President and the chairman of the 
Committee on Agriculture before this bill be- 
came a law. 

It has been said, and is no doubt true, that 
in the openness and the directness of his dealing 
with Congress, Roosevelt surpassed all of his 
predecessors, and that no President ever equaled 
him in the amount of legislation he asked of 
Congress. 

Entirely characteristic of Roosevelt's methods 
was his action in the case of the Tennessee Coal 
and Iron Company. The Senate passed a reso- 
lution calling on the Attorney-General to state 
to the Senate why he had not prosecuted the 
Steel Trust, under the Anti-Trust Law, for the 



RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS 131 

purchase of the Tennessee Coal Company in 
the fall of 1907. The President instructed the 
Attorney-General not to answer the question, 
and then answered the question himself. He 
said that Mr. Gary and Mr. Frick called on 
him in November, 1907, in regard to the mat- 
ter, and asked if the acquisition of the Tennes- 
see Coal Company would be regarded by the 
President as a violation of the law. " They as- 
serted that they did not wish to do this if I 
stated that it ought not to be done. I answered 
that, while, of course, I could not advise them 
to take the action proposed, I felt it no public 
duty of mine to interpose any objection." It 
appears that the President was subsequently 
advised in writing by the Attorney-General 
that there was no legal ground for proceedings 
against the Steel Corporation, and the pur- 
chase of the Tennessee Coal Company would 
constitute no ground for such prosecution. 

Roosevelt's action was abundantly vindi- 
cated in the opinion of the Court in the case 
of the United States vs. United States Steel 
Corporation, decided June 3, 191 5, in the 
United States District Court for the District 
of New Jersey, in which, referring to the pur- 



132 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

chase by the Steel Corporation of the Tennes- 
see Coal and Iron Company, the court said: — 

We shall next consider the purchase by the Steel 
Company of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, 
which was made in November, 1907. On the one 
hand, it is alleged the Tennessee Company was a 
competitor of great power and that its purchase was 
for the purpose of suppressing competition and effect- 
ing monopoly and restraint of trade. On the other 
hand, it is contended that the competition of the 
Tennessee Company was of relatively small extent, 
that its purchase was practically forced upon the 
Steel Company as a means of averting a threatening 
financial crisis during the panic of 1907, and that 
such purchase neither did nor tended to monopolize 
or restrain the steel and iron Industry of the United 
States. . . . 

[We] have arrived at the following conclusions: — 
At the time the Steel Company bought the Ten- 
nessee Company, the latter's production of iron and 
steel was 1.7 per cent of the production of the coun- 
try; that up to that time the Tennessee Company 
had not been a business success; that it was making 
rails, which was Its principal steel product, at a loss; 
that its ultimate success was problematic; that such 
success Involved an outlay of upward of $25,000,000 
to put it upon a dividend basis; that It had never 
really earned any dividends up to the time of Its 
sale; that the whole testimony shows Its relation as 
a successful, substantial competitor with the Steel 
Company in the volume of Its business, the character 
of Its product, and the breadth of Its market was neg- 



RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS 133 

Hgible. We are warranted by this testimony and find 
the fact to be that Its purchase by the Steel Company 
in no way tended to monopolize the steel and Iron 
trade, and that it was not bought with the purpose 
or intent of monopolizing, or attempting to monopo- 
lize, or restrain that trade. Such negative conclu- 
sions and findings are confirmed by the affirmative 
proofs showing just how the purchase was made, 
namely, as a necessary part of comprehensive plans 
of bankers and business men, sanctioned by Presi- 
dent Roosevelt, to check the panic of 1907, which 
was then at its height. Without entering Into details, 
we may say the situation was summed up in the letter 
of President Roosevelt to Attorney-General Bona- 
parte, as follows: — 

" November 4, 1907. 
*'My Dear Mr. Attorney-General: — 

"Judge E. H. Gary and Mr. H. C. Frick on behalf 
of the Steel Corporation have just called upon me. 
They state that there is a certain business firm (the 
name of which I have not been told, but which Is of 
real importance In New York business circles), which 
will undoubtedly fail this week if help is not given. 
Amdng its assets are a majority of the securities of 
the Tennessee Coal Company. Application has been 
urgently made to the Steel Corporation to purchase 
this stock as the only means of avoiding a failure. 
Judge Gary and Mr. Frick Inform me that as a mere 
business transaction they do not care to purchase the 
stock; that under ordinary circumstances they would 
not consider purchasing the stock, because but little 
benefit will come to the Steel Corporation from the 
purchase; that they are aware that the purchase will 



134 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

be used as a handle for attack upon them on the 
ground that they are striving to secure a monopoly 
of the business and prevent competition, not that 
this would represent what could honestly be said, 
but what might recklessly and untruthfully be said. 
They further inform me that, as a matter of fact, the 
policy of the company has been to decline to acquire 
more than sixty per cent of the steel properties, and 
that this purpose has been persevered in for several 
years past, with the object of preventing these accu- 
sations, and, as a matter of fact, their proportion of 
steel properties has slightly decreased so that it is 
below this sixty per cent, and the acquisition of the 
property in question will not raise it above sixty per 
cent. But they feel that it is immensely to their 
interest, as to the interest of every responsible busi- 
ness man, to try to prevent a panic and general indus- 
trial smash-up at this time, and that they are willing 
to go into this transaction, which they would not 
otherwise go into, because it seems the opinion of 
those best fitted to express judgment in New York 
that it will be an important factor in preventing a 
break that might be ruinous, and that this has been 
urged upon them by the combination of the most 
responsible bankers in New York who are now thus 
engaged in endeavoring to save the situation. But 
they asserted they did not wish to do this if I stated 
that it ought not to be done. I answered that while, 
of course, I could not advise them to take the action 
proposed, I felt it no public duty of mine to interpose 
any objection. 

'* Sincerely, yours, 

"Theodore Roosevelt." 



RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS 135 

When called by the Government as a witness. 
President Roosevelt testified as to this letter as 
follows : — 

"I was dealing with a panic and a situation where 
not merely twenty-four hours, but one hour might 
cause widespread disaster to the public. . . . 

"I ought to say that from New York I had been 
told by banker after banker that the Tennessee Coal 
and Iron securities were valueless as securities that 
counted in that panic. . . . 

"There were two matters to which my attention 
was especially directed. One was the condition of 
things in New York, the relief that the action would 
bring, not merely to New York, but throughout the 
entire country — just as much in Louisiana and 
Minnesota and California as in New York. That was 
one thing. The other thing to which my attention 
was particularly directed was the percentage of 
holdings the Steel Corporation had, and had had and 
would have after the Tennessee Coal and Iron prop- 
erties were acquired. . . . 

"The knowledge that I had was that the Steel 
Corporation had some years previously possessed 
nearly sixty per cent of the holdings of the steel 
industry in the country; that its percentage had 
shrunk steadily; that the addition of the Tennessee 
Coal and Iron Company, which was something in the 
nature of four per cent, — somewhere between two 
and four per cent, I have forgotten the exact amount, 
somewhere around there, — did not bring up the 
percentage of holdings of the Steel Corporation to 
what it had been a few years previously. . . . 

"IVIy knowledge was simply this, that it was a 



136 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

matter of general opinion among experts that the 
Tennessee Coal and Iron people had a property which 
was almost worthless in their hands, nearly worthless 
to them, nearly worthless to the communities in 
which it was situated, and entirely worthless to any 
financial institution that had the securities the min- 
ute that any panic came, and that the only way to 
give value to it was to put it in the hands of people 
whose possession of it would be a guaranty that there 
was value to it. . . . 

"I believed at the time that the facts In the case 
were as represented to me on behalf of the Steel 
Corporation, and my further knowledge has con- 
vinced me that this was true. I believed at the time 
that the representatives of the Steel Corporation 
told me the truth as to the change that would be 
worked in the percentage of the business which the 
proposed acquisition would give the Steel Corpora- 
tion; and further Inquiry has confirmed to me that 
they did so. I was not misled. The representatives 
of the Steel Corporation told me the truth as to what 
the effect of the action at that time would be, and 
any statement that I was misled, or that the repre- 
sentatives of the Steel Corporation did not thus tell 
me the truth as to the facts of the case, is itself not 
in accordance with the truth." 

An examination of the testimony shows that the 
matter was as stated by the President and that the 
Steel Corporation's chairman absolutely refused to 
purchase unless the matter was submitted to the 
government authorities, his testimony in that regard 
being: — 

*' While the President of the United States could 



RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS 137 

not say that we might purchase this, or that we 
should not purchase this property, yet I believed, 
inasmuch as he had the general direction of the law 
department of the United States, certainly we ought 
to know what would be the attitude of the Adminis- 
tration in case we did buy this property." 

The Court goes on to say: — 

Indeed, as to this purchase as well as the others 
which we have discussed above, sales made under 
different circumstances and for various reasons, we 
cannot but feel in the light of proofs that they were 
made in fair business course; and were, to use the 
language of the Supreme Court in the Standard Oil 
case, "The honest exertion t)f one's right to contract 
for his own benefit, unaccompanied by a wrongful 
motive to injure others." 

Toward the end of his term, the relations be- 
tween Roosevelt and Congress became some- 
what strained. This was due to a variety of 
causes. The President was, very properly, con- 
stantly pressing an elaborate programme of 
legislation. Congress could never meet his ex- 
pectations or the expectations of the people, 
and the legislative body came to feci that its 
efforts were not properly appreciated and that 
the Executive held a place in the confidence of 
the people that properly belonged to Congress. 
The President prefcred pretty direct methods 



138 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

to the arts of diplomacy. I think that the coun- 
try rather enjoyed his controversies with Con- 
gress, and, as a rule, sided with him. 

Senator Lodge, in his admirable address upon 
"The Constitution and its Makers," in speak- 
ing of Congress, said: — 

Yet whatever praise history accords to the Con- 
gress of the United States in the past, the Congress 
of the moment and the members of that body in 
either branch receive but little commendation from 
their contemporaries. This is perhaps not unnatural 
and it certainly has always been customary. . . . The 
men who fight by land and sea, rouse immediate 
popular enthusiasm, but a body of men engaged in 
legislation does not and cannot offer the fascination 
or the attraction which are Inseparable from the 
individual man who stands forth alone from the 
crowd in any great work of life, whether of war or 
peace. 

It was early suggested to the President that 
the most powerful members of his party did 
not like his ways and that if he asserted his in- 
dependence he would get no favors from Con- 
gress and no renomination by the party; that 
he had trodden on "many gouty. Senatorial 
toes." The relations were so "strained" at one 
time that a resolution was in preparation requir- 
ing the President to file a copy of every execu- 



END OF HIS TERM 139 

tive order with a citation of the law following it, 
and also for the creation of a committee of dis- 
tinguished lawyers to report on the President's 
acts and orders. In spite of all the criticism of 
Roosevelt by the party managers before 1904, 
he was reelected by such a majority as to leave 
no doubt as to his strength, and went out of 
office with his great popularity with the people 
unimpaired. 

End of his Term 

As the end of Roosevelt's Administration 
approached, his friends became solicitous as to 
his future. He was a comparatively young man, 
little over fifty, possessed of unbounded energy, 
and by inclination and habit of untiring Indus- 
try. In what direction could his energies be best 
directed to secure the greatest results and at the 
same time not impair his prestige ? The first year 
was provided for by the African trip; but after 
that, what? Three months before the end of 
his term, I called at the White House to talk 
with him about a matter of legislation. It was 
in the afternoon of December 9, 1908. 

After I had finished my business, Roosevelt 
asked me to stay, and then told me what he 



140 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

was going to do when he left the White House. 
He said that he had received a number of of- 
fers, one the presidency of a large corporation 
with a salary of ^100,000, but that he was de- 
termined to make no commercial use of his 
name; another the associate editorship of the 
"Outlook" at $12,000 salary, which he had 
accepted because that would enable him to 
reach the people he wanted to reach. As I was 
leaving, I said, *'Mr. President, I want to say 
one thing to you. Never, under any circum- 
stances, become a candidate for any political 
office — unless, perchance, you should some- 
time be called back here — because, if you do, 
your prestige will be ruined, and it is the great- 
est asset the American people possess." As I 
recall it, the exact expression I used was, "Do 
not let any friend persuade or any enemy coerce 
you into becoming a candidate for office." Do 
you mean the senatorship?" said he, for he had 
been considered for Piatt's place. "I had not 
thought of that at present." '' I mean any po- 
litical office," said I. 

I remember that at this time a member of 
Roosevelt's family asked me what I would have 
him do after he left the Presidency. I replied 



END OF HIS TERM 141 

that I thought it would be a great misfortune 
for him to engage in any kind of business or 
have anything to do with politics. I said that 
after he returned from his projected African 
trip, I would have him settle at Sagamore Hill, 
and, for his serious occupation, write the his- 
tory of his Administration. Parts of it could 
be published during his lifetime, and it could 
be published as an entirety after his death. For 
his bread-winning occupation, I would have him 
write for the magazines, as he had always done. 
I said that his house would become a Mecca for 
distinguished men from all over the world, and 
that, acting in an advisory capacity and with 
his great prestige, he would continue a very po- 
tent force in our national life. I further suggested 
that perhaps he might deliver four addresses a 
year at the great universities, — North, South, 
East, and West, — and thus continue to be a 
great inspiration for young American manhood. 
I do not assert that the course I would have 
had him follow was the best one, or possible for 
him, but these are the views which I held at the 
time and which I expressed. 

The period covered by Roosevelt's service had 
been, generally speaking, one of great indus- 



142 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

trial prosperity, of a singularly honest and effi- 
cient administration of the Government, and 
one in which the conscience of the people — and 
here was Roosevelt's most conspicuous accom- 
plishment — had been wonderfully quickened. 
Several years ago I happened to be sitting 
next President Eliot at a public dinner — Roose- 
velt was then President. Mr. Eliot said to me 
that a certain prominent banker had told him 
that the banking fraternity would not then do 
things which they would have done two years 
before — fine testimony to the changed feeling in 
commercial circles; it was a feeling very differ- 
ent in 1907 from that which prevailed in 1897, 
and one which has continued to the present 
time. We grew better in that decade; we were 
not bad at the beginning, but we were better 
at the end. For this Roosevelt was largely 
responsible. His great power was a moral power. 
As to his popularity, the New York "Times" 
said, in an editorial, at a little later period: 
"They who dislike Colonel Roosevelt, or think 
they do, scarcely count in the census." 

The Administration of Theodore Roosevelt 
ended on March 4, 1909, when his successor, 
William H. Taft, was inaugurated. It will be 



END OF HIS TERM 143 

remembered that Washington was swept by a 
blizzard which seriously interfered with the cere- 
monies of the day. The usual preparations had 
been made for the delivery of the inaugural 
address on the east portico of the Capitol. The 
snow forbade and at the last moment it was 
decided that it should be delivered in the Sen- 
ate Chamber where all of the dignitaries as- 
sembled. In accordance with custom, Presi- 
dent Roosevelt had driven from the White 
House to the Capitol with his successor, but 
contrary to custom he did not return with him. 
Immediately after President Taft delivered his 
address, the ex-President left the Chamber and 
went directly to the railway station. The man, 
who for seven years had been the most prom- 
inent and talked-about person in the world, 
became a private citizen. There was a hush 
over the Chamber as he left, and one could al- 
most hear the unexpressed but common thought 
of that great assemblage, "He has gone.''^ 



CHAPTER IV 

THE AFRICAN AND EUROPEAN TRIPS 

AFTER a few days spent at Oyster Bay, 
Roosevelt, on March 23, 1909, sailed from 
New York for Africa in charge of a scientific ex- 
pedition sent out by the Smithsonian Institution 
to collect birds, mammals, reptiles, and plants, 
but especially specimens of big game, for the 
National Museum at Washington. Speaking of 
this approaching trip, he said that "nothing 
will be shot unless for food or for preservation 
as a specimen, or unless the animal is of a nox- 
ious kind. There will be no wanton destruc- 
tion whatever." And writing at a later time 
while on the expedition, he wrote: — 

As a matter of fact, every animal I have shot, with 
the exception of six or eight for food, has been care- 
fully preserved for the National Museum. I can be 
condemned only if the existence of the National 
Museum, the American Aluseum of Natural History, 
and all similar zoological collections are to be con- 
demned. 

It is not my purpose to speak in detail of this 

expedition. I may, perhaps, take the space to 



THE AFRICAN TRIP 145 

say that the achievements are recorded in a 
most interesting book called *' African Game 
Trails." The foreword is dated Khartoum, 
March 15, 1910, and every sentence suggests 
Roosevelt's love for nature and the open. These 
are the closing lines: — 

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit 
of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its 
melancholy, and its charm. There is delight in the 
hardy life of the open, In long rides, rifle in hand, in 
the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart 
from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attrac- 
tion of the silent places, of the large tropic moons, 
and the splendor of the new stars; where the wanderer 
sees the awful glory of sunrise and sunset In the wide 
waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed 
only by the slow change of the ages through time 
everlasting. 

In these lines both the hunter and the poet 
speak. This book is not only full of interest to 
the sportsman, but to the naturalist as well. 
At the end is a list of game shot with the rifle 
by Roosevelt and his son Kermit, with the 
following note: — 

Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies for our- 
selves, otherwise we shot nothing that was not used 
either as a museum specimen or for meat — usually 
for both purposes. We were In hunting grounds 
practically as good as any that have ever existed; 



146 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

but we did not kill a tenth, not a hundredth part of 
what we might have killed had we been willing. The 
mere size of the bag indicates little as to a man's 
prowess as a hunter, and almost nothing as to the 
interest or value of his achievement. 

One of the appendices contains a list of ani- 
mals killed and of the species to which they 
belong, of great interest and value to the sci- 
entist. Another contains an elaborate argu- 
ment by Roosevelt upon "protective colora- 
tion" in which he takes issue with some of the 
extreme members of the protective coloration 
school. Another contains the original list of the 
'Tigskin Library." 

Speaking of his books, Roosevelt says: — 

■ Where possible, I had them bound In pigskin. 
They were for use, not ornament. I almost always 
had some volume with me, either in my saddle- 
pocket or In the cartridge-bag which one of my gun- 
bearers carried to hold odds and ends. Often my 
reading would be done while resting under a tree at 
noon, perhaps beside the carcass of a beast I had 
killed, or else while waiting for camp to be pitched; 
and in either case It might be impossible to get 
water for washing. In consequence the books were 
stained with blood, sweat, gun-oil, dust, and ashes; 
ordinary bindings either vanished or became loath- 
some; whereas pigskin merely grew to look as a well- 
used saddle looks. 



THE AFRICAN TRIP 147 

His discussion of these books and of others, 
his reasons for selecting them, and his com- 
ments upon President Eliot's "five-foot li- 
brary" are full of interest and suggest the fact 
that Roosevelt had always been a most omnivo- 
rous reader. The word is apt, because he was 
literally a devourer of books. This book of 
travel alone, with its notes and appendices, 
might well embody the full measure of accom- 
plishment of a hunter and naturalist, but is 
merely one among the many of his prodigious 
activities. 

It was just the sort of trip which would at- 
tract him, and was full of thrilling incidents, all 
of which appealed to some craving of his. He ran 
the whole gamut of experiences common to the 
hunter and explorer who never spared himself. 
Some idea of the variety of his activities may 
be gained from the following programme for a 
single day: — 

' Colonel Roosevelt, after an antelope hunt this 
morning, called upon Mother Paul, the American 
superior of the convent here, visited the Catholic 
mission, helped to dedicate a wing recently added 
to the Church Mission Society's hospital, and took 
luncheon with Bishop Hanlon. This afternoon he 
received the King of Uganda, and with him attended 
a dinner. 



148 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

The expedition ended on March 14, 19 10, 
when it reached Khartoum, and then began 
that extraordinary journey through Europe 
during which Roosevelt delivered a series of 
addresses which attracted world-wide atten- 
tion. In some quarters he was criticized for 
his blunt comments upon political conditions in 
Egypt which were called "hasty," "impulsive," 
and "unwise." One thing is certain, they were 
characteristic, a frank expression of his views. 
They were, however, neither "hasty" nor "im- 
pulsive," because they had been considered 
with the greatest care, and Roosevelt once told 
me that he said nothing of political conditions 
which had not been submitted in advance to 
those men of the country whose judgment he 
considered the best. 

I cannot better describe the conditions un- 
der which these addresses came to be delivered 
than to quote the foreword in the book con- 
taining them: — 

My original intention had been to return to the 
United States direct from Africa, by the same route 
I took when going out. I altered this intention be- 
cause of receiving from the Chancellor of Oxford 
University, Lord Curzon, an invitation to deliver 
the Romanes Lecture at Oxford. The Romanes 



THE AFRICAN TRIP 149 

Foundation" had always greatly Interested me, and 
I had been much struck by the general character of 
the annual addresses, so that I was glad to accept. 
Immediately afterwards, I received and accepted 
invitations to speak at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at 
the University of Berlin. In Berlin and at Oxford, 
my addresses were of a scholastic character, designed 
especially for the learned bodies which I was address- 
ing, and for men who shared their interests in scien- 
tific and historical matters. In Paris, after consult- 
ing with the French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, 
through whom the invitation was tendered, I decided 
to speak more generally, as the citizen of one repub- 
lic addressing the citizens of another republic. 

When, for these reasons, I had decided to stop in 
Europe on my way home, it, of course, became neces- 
sary that I should speak to the Nobel Prize Commit- 
tee in Christlania, in acknowledgment of the Com- 
mittee's award of the peace prize, after the Peace of 
Portsmouth had closed the war between Japan and 
Russia. 

While in Africa, I became greatly interested in the 
work of the government officials and soldiers who 
were there upholding the cause of civilization. These 
men appealed to me; in the first place, because they 
reminded me so much of our own officials and soldiers 
who have reflected such credit on the American name 
in the Philippines, in Panama, In Cuba, In Porto 
Rico; and in the next place, because I was really 
touched by the way in which they turned to me, 
with the certainty that I understood and believed in 
their work, and with the eagerly expressed hope that 
when I got the chance I would tell the people at 



I50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

home what they were doing and would urge that 
they be supported in doing it. 

In my Egyptian address, my endeavor was to hold 
up the hands of these men, and at the same time to 
champion the cause of the missionaries, of the native 
Christians, and of the advanced and enlightened 
Mohammedans in Egypt. To do this it was neces- 
sary emphatically to discourage the anti-foreign 
movement, led, as it is, by a band of reckless, foolish, 
and sometimes murderous agitators. In other words, 
I spoke with the purpose of doing good to Egypt, 
and with the hope of deserving well of the Egyptian 
people of the future, unwilling to pursue the easy line 
of moral culpability which is implied in saying pleas- 
ant things of that noisy portion of the Egyptian 
people of to-day, who, if they could have their way, 
would irretrievably and utterly ruin Egypt's future. 
In the Guildhall Address, I carried out the same idea. 

I made a number of other addresses, some of which 
— those, for instance, at Budapest, Amsterdam, 
Copenhagen, Stockholm, and the University of 
Christiania — I would like to present here; but un- 
fortunately they were made without preparation, 
and were not taken down in shorthand, so that, with 
the exception of the address made at the dinner in 
Christiania and the address at the Cambridge Union, 
these cannot be included. 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Sagamore Hill, 
July 15, 1910. 

This leads mc to say a few words about 
Roosevelt as a speaker and a writer. 



THE EUROPEAN TRIP 151 

As I have said he was not in his youth a 
ready speaker. He was halting and hesitating 
in his delivery. In the early days no one would 
have predicted a great future for him as an 
"orator." In the later years, while he has had 
none of the arts of the orator, the subject-mat- 
ter of his addresses has been so interesting and 
his personality so compelling that he has be- 
come a most impressive speaker. He has, as 
every one knows, been a most voluminous 
writer, and I was surprised when he said to me 
about three years ago, in substance: "Do you 
know I am not a very ready writer. No one 
knows how much time I put into my articles 
for the ^Outlook.'" He then pulled a type- 
written manuscript from his pocket and said, 
"Here is an article that I am going over, as I 
have opportunity, correcting and recasting it,'' 
and then he added, "but my work is done three 
months ahead." Here is one great secret of 
his ability to accomplish so much: he is always 
doing to-day the work of to-morrow, of next 
week, or of next year. During the winter of 
1909, Roosevelt was at work on the addresses 
he was to deliver after his African trip and 
while in Europe. 



152 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I have no space for extended comment on 
these addresses. They are easily accessible and 
should be read in their entirety. The first was 
delivered at the American Mission at Khar- 
toum on March i6, 1910; the second, on "Law 
and Order in Egypt," before the National Uni- 
versity in Cairo, March 28, 1910. This was 
delivered under rather disturbed conditions 
because of the recent assassination of Boutros 
Pasha and in spite of threats against Roose- 
velt's life. Sir Eldon Gorst advised him not to 
deliver it, as he could not guarantee his safety. 
Roosevelt replied that he was not nervous about 
that, that he would guarantee his own safety. 
Later there was a mob demonstration in front 
of Shepheard's Hotel. The third, on *' Citizen- 
ship in a Republic," was delivered at the Sor- 
bonne in Paris, April 23, 1910. I have always 
wondered how the following anecdote, told by 
Roosevelt in this address, affected a Parisian 
audience: — 

A number of years ago I was engaged in cattle- 
ranching on the great plains of the western United 
States. There were no fences. The cattle wandered 
free, the ownership of each being determined by the 
brand; the calves were branded with the brand of the 
cows they followed. If on the round-up an animal 



THE EUROPEAN TRIP 153 

was passed by, the following year it would appear as 
an unbranded yearling, and was then called a "maver- 
ick." By the custom of the country these mavericks 
were branded with the brand of the man on whose 
range they were found. One day I was riding the 
range with a newly hired cowboy, and we came upon 
a maverick. He roped and threw it; then we built a 
little fire, took out a cinch-ring, heated it at the fire; 
and the cowboy started to put on the brand. I said 
to him, "It is So-and-So's brand," naming the man 
on whose range we happened to be. He answered: 
^'That's all right, boss; I know my business." In 
another moment I said to him, "Hold on, you are 
putting on my brand!" To which he answered, 
"That's all right; I always put on the boss's brand.'' 
I answered, "Oh, very well. Now, you go straight 
back to the ranch and get what is owing you; I 
don't need you any longer." He jumped up and 
said: "Why, what's the matter.^ I was putting on 
your brand." And I answered: "Yes, my friend, 
and if you will steal for me you will steal jrom 
mer 

Now, the same principle which applies in private 
life applies also in public life. If a public man tries 
to get your vote by saying that he will do something 
wrong in your interest, you can be absolutely certain 
that if ever it becomes worth while he will do some- 
thing wrong against your interest. 

Fifty-nine thousand copies of this address 
were printed and a copy given to each school- 
master in France. The speech had a real effect 



154 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

in diminishing the bitterness of the clerical con- 
troversy. 

The fourth was an address delivered before the 
Nobel Prize Committee at Christiania, Norway, 
May 5, 1910, in which he said in opening: — 

It is with peculiar pleasure that I stand here to-day 
to express the deep appreciation I feel of the high 
honor conferred upon me by the presentation of the 
Nobel Peace Prize. The gold medal which formed 
part of the prize I shall always keep, and I shall hand 
it on to my children as a precious heirloom. The sum 
of money provided as part of the prize by the wise 
generosity of the illustrious founder of this world- 
famous prize system, I did not, under the peculiar 
circumstances of the case, feel at liberty to keep. I 
think it eminently just and proper that in most cases 
the recipient of the prize should keep for his own use 
the prize In Its entirety. But In this case, while I did 
not act officially as President of the United States, it 
was nevertheless only because I was President that I 
was enabled to act at all; and I felt that the money 
must be considered as having been given me in trust 
for the United States. I therefore used it as a nucleus 
for a foundation to forward the cause of industrial 
peace, as being well within the general purpose of 
your Committee; for in our complex Industrial civili- 
zation of to-day the peace of righteousness and jus- 
tice, the only kind of peace worth having. Is at least 
as necessary In the industrial world as it is among 
nations. There Is at least as much need to curb the 
cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of 



THE EUROPEAN TRIP 155 

capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part 
of the world of labor, as to check the cruel and un- 
healthy militarism in international relationships. 

The fifth, "The Colonial Policy of the United 
States," was given at Christiania, Norway, on 
the evening of May 5, 1910. 

The sixth, "The World Movement," was de- 
livered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 
1910. 

On the day preceding the lecture in Berlin, 
Roosevelt was present, by the Emperor's invi- 
tation, to review twelve thousand picked Ger- 
man troops. The Emperor said: "My friend 
Roosevelt, I am glad to welcome you, the most 
distinguished American citizen. You are the 
first civilian who has ever reviewed German 
troops." 

The seventh, "The Condition of Success," 

was delivered at the Cambridge Union, May 

26, 1910, from which I make one quotation to 

support what I say elsewhere: — 

... I never was an athlete, although I have always 
led an outdoor life, and have accomplished something 
in it, simply because my theory is that almost any 
man can do a great deal, if he will, by getting the 
utmost possible service out of the qualities that he 
actually possesses. 



156 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

. . . The average man who is successful — the 
average statesman, the average public servant, the 
average soldier, who wins what we call great success 
— is not a genius. He is a man who has merely the 
ordinary qualities that he shares with his fellows, 
but who has developed those ordinary qualities to a 
more than ordinary degree. 

The eighth, "British Rule in Africa," was 
given at the Guildhall in London, May 31, 1910. 
Sir Edward Grey stated in Parliament that this 
address was shown to him before it was deliv- 
ered, was approved by him, and was made by 
his desire. It has been said that as a result of 
this speech, Kitchener was sent to Egypt. 

The ninth, "Biological Analogies in His- 
tory," at Oxford, June 7, 1910, was perhaps the 
most scholarly of all the addresses. It was the 
Romanes Lecture, and before it was delivered 
Roosevelt had conferred upon him the highest 
honorary degree Oxford could give. In this ad- 
dress he states some interesting conclusions he 
had reached as a student of biology and his- 
tory, and draws, as he says, — 

certain analogies between what has occurred to forms 
of animal life through the procession of the ages on 

this planet, and what has occurred and is occurring 
to the great artificial civilizations which have gradu- 



THE EUROPEAN TRIP 157 

ally spread over the world's surface, during the thou- 
sands of years that have elapsed since cities of tem- 
ples and palaces first rose beside the Nile and the 
Euphrates, and the harbors of Minoan Crete bristled 
with the masts of the iEgean craft. 

The formal proceedings were in Latin, of 
which the following is a translation, as it is given 
in the appendix to "African and European 
Addresses" by Theodore Roosevelt; — 

CONVOCATION 
June 7, 1910 

Followed by the Delivery of 

THE ROxMANES LECTURE 

by 

THE HONBLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Hon. D.C.L 

The Right Honorable 

LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON 

Chancellor 

PRESIDING 

Convocation and the Romanes Lecture 
(Translation of the Latin) 
The Chancellor: 

The object of this Convocation is, that if it be your 
pleasure. Gentlemen of the University, the Honorary 
Degree of Doctor of Civil Law may be conferred on 



iS8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, ex-President of 
the United States of America, that the long-expected 
Romanes Lecture may be delivered by him, when 
he has been made the youngest Doctor in the Uni- 
versity, and that any other business should be trans- 
acted which may belong to this Venerable House. 

Is it the pleasure, then, of this Venerable House 
that the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil Law 
should be conferred upon the Honorable Theodore 
Roosevelt? Is it your pleasure, Reverend Doctors? 
Is it your pleasure, Masters of the University? 

Go, Bedels, and bring in the Honorable gentleman! 

The Chancellor to the Fice-Chancellor: 

Behold, Vicc-Chanccllor, the promised wight, 
Before whose coming comets turned to flight, 
And all the startled mouths of sevenfold Nile took fright! 

Presentation Speech by Dr. Henry Goudy 

It has been my privilege to present in former years 
many distinguished citizens of the great American 
Republic for our honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, 
but none of them have surpassed in merit or obtained 
such world-wide celebrity as he whom I now present 
to you. Of ancient Dutch lineage, as his name indi- 
cates, but still a genuine American, he has long been 
an outstanding figure among his fellow citizens. He 
first became known to us in England during the 
Spanish-American War, when he commanded a regi- 
ment of cavalry and proved himself a most capable 
military leader. Omnivorous in his quest of knowl- 
edge, nothing in human affairs seemed to him super- 
fluous or negligible. In the language of the poet, one 



THE EUROPEAN TRIP 159 

might say of him — **Non sibi sed toti genitum se 
credere mundoJ' Twice has he been elevated to the 
position of President of the Republic, and in per- 
forming the duties of that high office has acquired a 
title to be ranked with his great predecessor Abraham 
Lincoln — ^^ Quorum alter servitudinem, alter corrup- 
tionem vicit.'* May we not presage that still a third 
time — most auspicious of numbers — he may be 
called upon to take the reins of government? 

With unrivaled energy and tenacity of purpose he 
has combined lofty ideals with a sincere devotion to 
the practical needs not only of his fellow countrymen, 
but of humanity at large. A sincere friend of peace 
among nations — who does not know of his successful 
efforts to terminate the devastating war between 
Russia and Japan? — he has also firmly held that 
peace is only a good thing when combined with jus- 
tice and right. He has ever asserted that a nation 
can only hope to survive if it be self-respecting and 
makes itself respected by others. 

A noted sportsman and lover of natural history, 
he has recently, after his arduous labors as Head of 
the State, been seeking relaxation in distant Africa, 
where his onslaughts on the wild beasts of the desert 
have been not less fierce nor less successful than over 
the many-headed hydra of corruption in his own 
land. 

Now, like another Ulysses, on his homeward way 
he has come to us for a brief interval, after visiting 
many cities and discoursing on many themes. 

Nor must I omit to remind you that our guest, 
amid his engrossing duties of State, has not neglected 



i6o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the Muses. Not less facile with the pen than the 
tongue, he has written on many topics, and this 
afternoon it will be our privilege to listen to him 
discoursing on a lofty theme. 

By the Chancellor: 

Most strenuous of men, most distinguished of citi- 
zens to-day playing a part on the stage of the world, 
you who have twice administered with purity the 
first Magistracy of the Great Republic (and may 
perhaps administer it a third time), peer of the most 
august Kings, queller of men, destroyer of monsters 
wherever found, yet the most human of mankind, 
deeming nothing indifferent to you, not even the 
blackest of the black; I, by my authority and that of 
the whole University, admit you to the Degree of 
Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa. 

Go, Bedels, conduct the Honorable Doctor to the 
Lectern! 

[Here follows the Chancellor's welcome, and the 
Romanes Lecture. 

After the Lecture, the Chancellor to the Vice- 
Chancellor.] 

And now, my dear Vice-Chancellor — for it Is 
time — be good enough to dissolve the Convocation! 

The Vice-Chancellor: 

Exalted Lord Chancellor, at your bidding we dis- 
solve the Convocation. 

In reply to the criticisms sometimes made that 
these addresses contain many commonplace ob- 



THE EUROPEAN TRIP i6i 

servations, it may be said that this is true of 
nine tenths of what is spoken and written. The 
timeliness and fitness of an observation most 
often determine its value, and the application 
of old and homely truths to new situations is 
often as striking and frequently as effective as 
if they had never been heard before. 

Certainly few will dissent from the precepts 
contained in these addresses or, if familiar with 
the local conditions, question their timeliness. 
The doctrine of charity preached at Khartoum; 
the danger of exalting literature and a literary 
education unduly and at the expense of the ap- 
plied sciences so necessary to the advancement 
of mankind, pointed out at Cairo, and the un- 
sparing condemnation of lawlessness exempli- 
fied in the assassination of Boutros Pasha; con- 
demnation of the cynic and the critic who seek 
to tear down the well-intended work of others 
while contributing nothing themselves; giving 
the preeminent place to honesty in the adminis- 
tration of affairs of business or of politics: surely 
these are all sentiments that cannot be too often 
repeated. 

The opinion expressed by Roosevelt at Paris 
that some other agency than force should be 



1 62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

found in the settlement of international dis- 
putes must command approval. Nor can one 
dissent from his proposition that where the 
claims of peace and justice conflict, there must 
be resort to arms. In the address before the 
Nobel Prize Committee at Christiania he took 
advantage of an opportunity to advocate that 
the growth of armaments be checked by inter- 
national agreement. In speaking at Berlin, he 
seized an excellent opportunity to emphasize 
the community of interest of all the peoples of 
the world, the wisdom of utilizing the experience 
of all countries in the settlement of any great 
social or economic problem, and the value of 
everyday virtues as essential to the permanence 
of the State. 

At Cambridge, the proper place that sport 
should have in our lives is considered, and atten- 
tion is directed to that fact, which cannot be 
too often stated, that the best accomplishment 
is not by the man of genius, but by the man in 
whom the ordinary gifts are developed to their 
full capacity. No more important lesson can 
be taught the young, for it places success with- 
in the reach of all who are willing to practice 
the virtues of industry, patience, and honesty. 



THE VATICAN INCIDENT 163 

Roosevelt had a very modest opinion of some 
of his speeches. Secretary Hay in his Diary 
mentions the following conversation with the 
President on June 5, 1904: — 

[The President] spoke of his own speeches, saying 
he knew there was not much in them except a certain 
sincerity and kind of commonplace morality which 
put him en rapport with the people he talked with. 

This remark to John Hay no doubt referred 
to the speeches in which Roosevelt was seeking 
to get the people to take what he considered 
the right view of some matters of policy and 
morality which were vital but commonplace. 

It is not true that what Roosevelt said and 
wrote was at all lacking in originality both of 
thought and of expression, as much that I have 
quoted will demonstrate. Other examples may 
be found in all the books and state papers he 
has written. A striking one is the ninth chap- 
ter of his autobiography which he regards as 
the best chapter he ever wrote. 

The Vatican Incident 

One matter to which I wish to refer occurred 
during Roosevelt's stay in Europe and was the 
so-called Vatican incident. When in Africa, 



i64 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

in reply to an inquiry from our Ambassador at 
Rome, he stated that of course he would be glad 
to be received by the King of Italy and to be 
presented to the Pope. Our Ambassador, in 
response to this suggestion, received the follow- 
ing message from the Rector of the American 
Catholic College: "The Holy Father will be 
delighted to grant audience to Mr. Roosevelt 
on April 5th, and hopes nothing will arise to 
prevent it, such as the much-regretted incident 
which made the reception of Mr. Fairbanks 
impossible." Roosevelt replied to our Ambassa- 
dor as follows: "On the other hand, I in my 
turn must decline to have any stipulations 
made or submit to any conditions which in any 
way limit my freedom of conduct." To this the 
Vatican replied through our Ambassador: "On 
the other hand. In view of the circumstances 
for which neither His Holiness nor Mr. Roose- 
velt is responsible, an audience could not occur 
except on the understanding expressed In the 
former message." 

In response to this, Roosevelt sent the fol- 
lowing message to our Ambassador: "Proposed 
presentation Is, of course, now Impossible." 
Cardinal Merry del Val said to Mr. O'Loughlin, 



THE VATICAN INCIDENT 165 



(( 



Can you guarantee that Mr. Roosevelt will 
not visit the Methodists here?" Mr. O'Loughlin 
said in reply, "I cannot. Indeed, I believe that 
Mr. Roosevelt is just the man to go there. He 
will do as he pleases." 

Roosevelt subsequently issued the following 
statement: — 

I had made no arrangements to speak at any church 
or clerical organization in Rome. I have received a 
number of gentlemen of all religious faiths who have 
called at my rooms or at the American Embassy. 
Under the circumstances, I have requested the 
American Ambassador not to hold the reception 
which he had intended to hold. 

Roosevelt met the issue squarely, and in 
doing so ran great risk of offending both the 
Catholics and Methodists in this country in- 
stead of winning the approval of either, a risk 
no "politician" would have run, particularly 
one looking for political preferment. 

Roosevelt had been advised and urged not to 
go to Rome and thus to avoid trouble. He said 
that he would not invite trouble, but would not 
go a hand's breadth out of his way to avoid 
trouble when he knew that he was in the right. 

His journey through Europe had been a royal 
progress and he had been received on every hand 



i66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

with great acclaim as the champion of the doc- 
trine of equality of opportunity for all men, ir- 
respective of race, creed, or color. He reached 
New York on Saturday, June i8, 1910, and re- 
ceived a wonderful welcome. Measuring by 
human standards, I suppose that he reached on 
that day the zenith of his fame. At the dinner 
given for him at that time, he said to a friend: 
"I am like Peary at the North Pole; there is no 
way for me to travel except South." 

A member of his family has told me that on 
the afternoon of the dinner some one saw Roose- 
velt coming out of Scribner's bookstore. In- 
stantly a great, cheering crowd gathered, all 
struggling to get at him and shake his hand. 
Speaking of this incident he said, "It is a kind 
of hysteria. They will soon be throwing rotten 
eggs at me." 

Roosevelt and His Candidacy for the Republican 
N omination in IQ12 

Properly to understand the situation from 
my point of view, we must go back to the elec- 
tion of 1904, of which Roosevelt said in his ad- 
dress before the Cambridge (England) Union, 
in 1910: — 



CAMPAIGN OF 19 1 2 167 

During my first term of office as President of the 
United States, I said: "Now, I do not wish there to 
be any misunderstanding. I like my job, and I want 
to keep it for four years longer." [Loud laughter and 
applause.] I don't think any President ever enjoyed 
himself more than I did. Moreover, I don't think 
any ex-President ever enjoyed himself more. I have 
enjoyed my life and my work because I thoroughly 
believe that success — the real success — does not 
depend upon the position you hold, but upon how 
you carry yourself in that position. 

There is no doubt in the mind of any one, I 
think, that the President did like his job and 
wanted to be elected in 1904, as he was by a 
majority staggering in its size. There is no 
doubt whatever that he liked the job equally 
well when he finished his term in 1909, and I 
have never heard any doubt expressed that he 
could have received the nomination in 1908, for 
a second "elective term," as some liked to ex- 
press it, had he desired it or even said that he 
would accept it. He was not weary of the office 
in 1908, nor was he unduly oppressed and 
weighed down, as many men have been, by its 
responsibilities. If he ever had an overpowering 
ambition to continue to be President, he must 
have had it then; and had he possessed the lust 
for power that has been credited to him by some 



i68 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

of his critics, it would have led him then to ac- 
cept a nomination which his party was ready 
to thrust upon him. What a personal triumph 
it would have been from the point of view of 
the ambitious man to hold the office for practi- 
cally three consecutive terms, something that 
no President had ever done, and yet Roosevelt 
turned away from it. On the night of the elec- 
tion in 1904, when his election was assured, he 
said: — 

The wise custom which limits the President to two 
terms regards the substance and not the form, and 
under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or 
accept another nomination. 

And he repeated the statement in December, 
1907, and devoted himself, with all his energy, 
to aiding in the nomination of Mr. Taft. Not 
only that, but every precaution was taken to 
prevent the stampeding to Roosevelt of the 
1908 Convention, of which there was always 
danger. His trusted personal and political 
friend. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, was chair- 
man of the convention, occupying that position 
for two purposes — to make impossible the nomi- 
nation of Roosevelt, to make certain the nomina- 
tion of Taft. In his speech Senator Lodge said : — 



CAMPAIGN OF 1912 169 

That man Is no friend of Theodore Roosevelt and 
does not cherish his name and fame who, now, from 
any motive, seeks to urge him as a candidate for the 
great office which he has finally declined. The Presi- 
dent has refused what his countrymen would have 
gladly given him. He says what he means and means 
what he says, and his party and his country will 
respect his wishes, as they honor his high character 
and his great public services. 

There is no evidence of which I ever heard 
that Roosevelt on his European trip gave a 
thought to the nomination in 191 2. Upon his 
return in May, 1910, at a public dinner given 
for him in New York, he said: — 

I am ready and eager to do my part, so far as I am 
able, in helping solve problems which must be solved 
if we, in this the greatest democratic republic upon 
which the sun has ever shone, are to see Its destinies 
rise to the high level of our hopes and its opportuni- 
ties. 

I think the suggestion here that he was 
"ready and eager to do his part" gave some 
anxiety to his friends, who were more jealous 
than he of his great fame. This anxiety was 
increased two months later when at Harvard 
Commencement, as President of the Alumni 
Association, Roosevelt, at the request of Gov- 
ernor Hughes, of New York, sent the following 



170 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

telegram to Mr. Griscom, Chairman of the 

Republican State Committee: — 

During the last week, great numbers of Republi- 
cans and independent voters from all over the State 
[New York] having written me urging the passage 
of Direct Primary legislation. I have seen Governor 
Hughes and have learned your views from your 
representative. It seems to me that the Cobb Bill, 
with the amendments proposed by you, meets the 
needs of the situation. I believe that the people de- 
mand it. I most earnestly hope that it will be enacted 
into law. 

Roosevelt was again in politics, to the regret, 
I think, of many of his friends, and to his own 
surprise, I firmly believe. This was his explana- 
tion of it at the time. In introducing Governor 
Hughes at the Alumni luncheon, Roosevelt 
said: — 

Our Governor has a very persuasive way with him. 
I had intended to keep absolutely clear from any 
kind of public or political question after coming 
home, and I could carry out my resolution all right 
until I met the Governor this morning, and he then 
explained to me that I had come back to live in New 
York now; that I had to help him out, and after a 
very brief conversation, I put up my hands and 
agreed to help him. 

In October of that year, Roosevelt was 

Chairman of the New York Republican State 



CAMPAIGN OF 1912 171 

Convention, defeating James S. Sherman, then 
Vice-President of the United States. Mr. Stim- 
son was nominated for governor as a Roosevelt 
candidate and was defeated by 100,000 votes. 
In commenting on the election, Roosevelt said 
at a later period, when he had become a candi- 
date for the Republican nomination for Presi- 
dent: — 

In that contest, as in this, I was exceedingly reluc- 
tant to be drawn into the contest. In that contest, as 
in this, I acted only from a sense of duty to the people 
as a whole, and in that contest I was assailed with 
precisely the same arguments by the great majority 
of those who are now assailing me. If I had consid- 
ered only my own personal interests and personal 
preferences, I would, of course, have kept out of the 
1910 campaign, have let the machine remain in con- 
trol at Saratoga, and have seen the State go Demo- 
cratic by 300,000 majority, as under those circum- 
stances it certainly would have gone. I went in 
because I conscientiously felt that it was my duty to 
take my part in the fight for honest government, for 
genuine self-government by the people, without 
regard to the consequences to myself, and I am in 
this fight on precisely the same basis and for pre- 
cisely the same reasons. 

As the Convention of 191 2 drew near, there 
was much speculation as to whether Roosevelt 
would be a candidate or not. Many people 



172 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

regarded his statement which I have quoted as 
a bar to his doing so. It was obviously open to 
the construction that he would never under any 
circumstances at any time be a candidate. As 
to what it was intended to express, Mr. Loeb, 
who was Roosevelt's secretary at the time, has 
told me that when the statement was drafted, 
it was suggested that it be limited in express 
terms to the election of 1908, but that that was 
disapproved for the reason that a declaration 
that Roosevelt would not run in 1908 would be 
accepted as tantamount to a statement that he 
would run in 191 2, which Roosevelt then had 
no intention of doing, nor had he any intention 
of saying anything that would not leave him 
free after 1908. A reporter present asked Roose- 
velt if this applied to 191 2. He replied: — 

Now, gentlemen, that is something I don't intend 
to speak about. You accept my statement just as I 
have made it. 

A prominent newspaper man recently said 

to me : — 

At that time none of the correspondents dreamed 
of interpreting his refusal to be a candidate as apply- 
ing to any other year than 1908. It was made to set 
at rest the rumors that he would try to succeed him- 
self at the end of the term to which he had just been 



CAMPAIGN OF 19 1 2 173 

elected, and none of us interpreted It in any other 
way. Not until he began to be talked of as a candi- 
date in 191 2 did anybody try to make it appear that 
his 1904 statement was intended to cover all the rest 
of his life so as to bar him from running forever. 

' I regard the episode as unfortunate, but as in 
no way reflecting upon Roosevelt's good faith. 

I had a long talk with Roosevelt in Novem- 
ber, 191 1. I spoke to him of the convention and 
of his possible candidacy. He said, in sub- 
stance, that he did not want to be a candidate 
- — that he did not want the office again, and 
that he believed that it would be a great risk 
for him to take it, and that he had no idea that 
conditions would arise that would make it neces- 
sary. If, however, such conditions should arise 
and it should become in his opinion a duty, he 
would not decline to be drafted. As late as 
December, 191 1, he wrote to influential men of 
the party in Washington urging them to do 
everything they could to stop any mention of 
his name in connection with the office. I talked 
with him again in January, 1912, and again he 
said he did not want the nomination, he doubted 
if any Republican could be elected, and that he 

personally had everything to lose and nothing 



,174 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

to gain if he should enter the contest, but again 
he said that if there should be an uprising of 
the people, which he did not anticipate, he might 
consider it. When I asked him why he did not 
say that under no circumstances would he ac- 
cept the office if it were tendered him, — and 
be it remembered that I was in favor of Mr. 
Taft's nomination, — he said, in substance, "I 
had to eat my words once in connection with 
the Vice-Presidency, and I don't want to run 
any chance of having to do it again." 

During all this time the supporters of all the 
candidates had been hard at work to secure 
delegates, but nothing was done by Roosevelt, 
nor did he want anything done. He stated over 
and over again that he did not want anything 
done and wanted nothing left undone that would 
prevent anything being done. 

Meantime, as he has told me. Republican 
governors of several States were writing him 
and seeing him, urging that he be a candidate. 
He told them that he was not convinced that 
there was any popular demand for his candi- 
dacy. Gradually, however, through all kinds 
of interviews, through all kinds of articles in 
the papers, through all kinds of letters and other 



CAMPAIGN OF 19 1 2 175 

communications, he became convinced, by a sort 
of cumulative process, that two thirds of the 
rank and file of the Republican party wished 
him to run; and further, that unless he made 
the fight for the principles in which he believed 
with all his heart and soul, there would be no 
fight at all made for them. He was in this state 
of mind when, on February 10, 191 2, at a meet- 
ing in Chicago, the Republican governors of 
seven States, West Virginia, Nebraska, New 
Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Kansas, and 
Missouri, asked Roosevelt in the following let- 
ter to become a candidate for the Presidency: — 

We, the undersigned Republican governors, as- 
sembled for the purpose of considering what will 
best insure the continuation of the Republican party 
as a useful agency of good government, declare it our 
belief, after a careful investigation of the facts, that 
a large majority of the Republican voters of the 
country favor your nomination, and a large majority 
of the people favor your election, as the next Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

We believe that your candidacy will insure success 
in the next campaign. We believe that you repre- 
sent, as no other man represents, those principles 
and policies upon which we must appeal for a major- 
ity of the votes of the American people, and which, 
in our opinion, are necessary for the happiness and 
prosperity of the country. 



176 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

We believe that, in view of this public demand, 
you should soon declare whether, if the nomination 
for the Presidency come to you unsolicited and un- 
sought, you will accept it. 

In submitting this request we are not considering 
your personal interests. We do not regard it as 
proper to consider either the interests or the prefer- 
ence of any man as regards the nomination for the 
Presidency. We are expressing our sincere belief and 
best judgment as to what is demanded of you in the 
interests of the people as a whole. And we feel that 
you would be unresponsive to a plain public duty if 
you should decline to accept the nomination, coming 
as the voluntary expression of the wishes of a major- 
ity of the Republican voters of the United States, 
through the action of their delegates in the next 
National Convention. 

With the knowledge that he would be a 
candidate, Roosevelt made, on February 21, 
191 2, his Columbus speech on "A Charter of 
Democracy," in which, among other things, he 
advocated the recall of judicial decisions. This 
speech alienated hundreds of thousands of Re- 
publican votes. He did not need to make it to 
secure the votes of radicals — those were his 
already. He must have known, as well as any 
one, what the result would be. And then, when 
he had left nothing undone and had done every- 
thing to make his nomination in a Republican 



CAMPAIGN OF 19 1 2 177 

Convention impossible, he replied, under date 
of February 24, 191 2, to the letter of the seven 
governors, as follows : — 

I deeply appreciate your letter, and I realize to 
the full the heavy responsibility it puts upon me, 
expressing as it does the carefully considered convic- 
tions of the men elected by popular vote to stand as 
the heads of government in their several States. 

I absolutely agree with you that this matter is not 
one to be decided with any reference to the personal 
preferences or interests of any man, but purely from 
the standpoint of the interests of the people as a 
whole. I will accept the nomination for President if 
it is tendered to me, and I will adhere to this decision 
until the convention has expressed Its preference. 
One of the chief principles for which I have stood and 
for which I now stand, and which I have always en- 
deavored and always shall endeavor to reduce to 
action, is the genuine rule of the people; and there- 
fore I hope that so far as possible the people may be 
given the chance, through direct primaries, to express 
their preference as to who shall be the nominee of the 
Republican Presidential Convention. 

It is my conviction that Roosevelt entered 
this campaign w^Ithout any desire to gratify a 
personal ambition, but as the leader of a cause 
in which he believed and without any thought as 
to how his personal fortunes would be affected. 
Recently he wrote me: — 



178 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

You know that 1912 really represented merely the 
goal of thought for which I had always been heading. 
From my standpoint it was merely the effort to 
apply the principles of Abraham Lincoln to the con- 
ditions of the twentieth century. 

His political creed is contained in the Car- 
negie Hall Address of March 20, 191 2, printed 
in the Appendix, in which he said toward the 
close: — 

In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired 
idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, 
who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams 
come true; who can kindle the people with the fire 
from their own burning souls. The leader for the 
time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, 
to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; 
and if he Is worth his salt he will care no more when 
he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent 
where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may 
be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watch- 
word for all of us is, spend and be spent. It Is of little 
matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but 
the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. 

This expressed his state of mind. Many of 
his friends would have preferred to have him 
preserve the great fame that was his, undimmed 
by any conflict In the political arena that might 
well lead to reverses. He chose for himself the 
other course. "In the long fight for righteous- 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 179 

ness, the watchword for all of us is, spend and 
be spent. It is of little matter whether any one 
man fails or succeeds, but the cause shall not 
fail, for it is the cause of mankind." 

Roosevelt and the Recall of Judicial Decisions 
There is probably no one doctrine urged by 
Roosevelt that has aroused so much criticism 
or alienated so many of his conservative sup- 
porters as that of the recall of judicial decisions 
advocated in his Columbus speech. Whether 
one agrees with him or not (and I am one of 
those who do not), his position should be fairly 
understood and he should not be charged with 
having advanced this doctrine in any dema- 
gogic spirit. That he was absolutely sincere in 
his opinion, and that it was the result of many 
years of thought, is not only, I believe, true, 
but can easily be demonstrated to be so. 

I have referred earlier in this narrative to 
the decision, in 1885, of the Court of Appeals 
of New York in finding unconstitutional the 
act of the Legislature declaring unlawful the 
manufacture in tenement houses of cigars or of 
tobacco into other forms, and stated that then, 
nearly thirty years before the Columbus speech, 



i8o THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Roosevelt's wrath was roused against that kind 
of judicial mind, which, as he said, was blind 
to changed social conditions and which was dis- 
posed so to limit the area of the "police power" 
as to make it impossible to legislate for the cor- 
rection of such abuses as the one I have men- 
tioned, namely, the limiting of the number of 
hours of work in unhealthy occupations, and 
others of a kindred nature. He gave expression 
to his views from time to time in his messages 
to Congress and elsewhere, and was for many 
years seeking a remedy which finally he thought 
he had found in the recall of judicial decisions. 
Before considering in detail what Roosevelt's 
views are upon this subject, let us understand 
just what the police power is, how it has been 
invoked by legislatures, and how construed by 
the courts. As an original proposition, one can 
engage in any lawful undertaking and make 
any kind of a contract, lawful in its purpose, 
without interference by either the legislatures 
or the courts; but as time has gone on and 
social conditions have changed, certain restric- 
tions have been imposed upon the way in which 
a man may carry on his business and the kind of 
contracts he can make, involving the welfare of 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS i8i 

others. For example, the slaughter of cattle is 
a necessary and useful business, but attended 
necessarily by disagreeable incidents, so that 
it has been found necessary in thickly settled 
communities to impose certain conditions under 
which the business must be carried on. This is 
an exercise of the police power. Similarly, the 
right to contract with a woman for her labor is 
restricted in order that her strength may not 
be unduly wasted and deterioration of the race 
follow. This is another exercise of the police 
power. As the Supreme Court once said: — 

Of course, it is impossible to forecast the character 
and extent of these changes, but in view of the fact 
that, from the day Magna Charta was signed to the 
present moment, amendments to the structure of 
the law have been made with increasing frequency, 
it is impossible to suppose that they will not continue, 
and the law be forced to adapt itself to the new con- 
dition of society, and, particularly to new relations 
between employers and employees, as they arise. 

And, on another occasion: — 

It is the thoroughly established doctrine of the court 
that liberty of contract may be circumscribed in the 
interest of the State and welfare of the people, and 
whether a given exercise of such authority transcends 
the limits of legislative authority must be determined 
in each case as it arises. 



1 82 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

In the tenement-house decision to which I 
have referred, the court held that a man should 
be permitted to manufacture cigars in a tene- 
ment and that it was not harmful to proper 
conditions of living or to society. This was a 
naked question of fact, and Roosevelt's recall 
of judicial decisions amounts simply to this: 
that the people who made the Constitution 
shall in this and kindred cases have an oppor- 
tunity to say what is and what is not an exer- 
cise of the police power necessary to meet exist- 
ing conditions, and that the final settlement of 
the question shall not rest with perhaps a bare 
majority of seven or nine judges. 

For example, in his message of December, 
1908, he said, speaking of judicial decisions 
which nullify legislative attempts to protect 
wage-workers : — 

The talk about preserving, to the misery-hunted 
beings who make contracts for such service, their 
"liberty" to make them, is either to speak in a spirit 
of heartless irony or else to show an utter lack of 
knowledge of the conditions of life among the great 
mass of fellow countrymen, a lack which unfits a 
judge to do good service just as it would unfit any 
executive or legislative officer. 

Speaking of the decision of the New York 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 183 

Court of Appeals declaring unconstitutional the 
New York law to provide for Workmen's Com- 
pensation on the ground that the proposed 
law is in conflict with the Constitution of the 
United States, he said (May, 191 1): — 

It is not merely the right but the duty of every 
friend of genuine justice and progress to protest 
against the decision in question. When the Supreme 
Court of Connecticut rendered a decision akin to 
that rendered by the Court of Appeals on the same 
subject, this decision was circulated by the great 
railway corporations very widely before the legisla- 
tures and courts in other States in order to prevent 
or nullify legislation designed to secure compensation 
to workingmen. Exactly similar action is now being 
taken in connection with this decision of the New 
York Court of Appeals. . . . The Court of Appeals 
in this decision fully admits the iniquity and injustice 
wrought by the principles which it proceeds to up- 
hold. Its contention is that the hands of the legisla- 
tures, the hands of the people, are tied by the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and that we cannot 
get justice for workingmen or secure them against 
the most cruel wrong because the Federal Constitu- 
tion and the State Constitution of New York, in the 
narrowest and most technical spirit, guarantee all 
persons against deprivation of liberty or property 
without due process of law. . . . The people must 
have the right ultimately to determine for them- 
selves what great lines of government policy are to 
be followed by the State; they have never surrendered 



1 84 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

this ultimate right to the judges or any one else, and 
it is our duty to see that it is not kept merely as a 
nominal and unreal right, a sham right, but that 
machinery shall be devised to make it a real, working 
right, which can be invoked and put into effect, but 
without too much difficulty. 

And in his Osawatomie speech of September, 

1910, he includes the following among the aims 
of the New Nationalism: — 

It demands of the judiciary that it shall be inter- 
ested primarily in human welfare rather than in 
property, just as it demands that the representative 
body shall represent all the people rather than one 
class or section of the people. 

In his speech before the Colorado Legisla- 
ture, in August, 1910, he justified his criticisms 
of the courts by referring to Lincoln's comment 
on the Dred Scott case, and to Judge Har- 
lan's comments on the majority opinion in the 
Knight case. Had his speech been made a year 
later, he might well have referred to Judge Har- 
lan's criticism of the majority opinion of the Su- 
preme Court in the Standard Oil Company and 
American Tobacco Company cases. In the case 
of the Standard Oil Company, decided May 15, 

191 1, the learned justice said, speaking of the 
majority opinion: — 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 185 

After many years of public service at the National 
Capital and after a somewhat close observation of 
the conduct of public affairs, I am impelled to say 
that there is abroad in our land a most harmful 
tendency to bring about the amending of constitu- 
tions and legislative enactments by means alone of 
judicial construction. ... To overreach the action 
of Congress merely by judicial construction — that 
is, by indirection — is a blow at the integrity of our 
governmental system, and in the end will prove most 
dangerous to all. 

And again, in the case of the American To- 
bacco Company, decided two weeks later: — 

In short, the court now, by judicial legislation, in 
effect amends an act of Congress relating to a subject 
over which that department of the Government has 
exclusive cognizance. 

An early example of the criticism of the 
courts is found in a letter from Thomas JeflFer- 
son to a Mr. Jarvis, dated Monticello, Sep- 
tember 28, 1820, from which the following is 
an extract: — 

You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate 
arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dan- 
gerous doctrine, indeed, and one which would place 
us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges 
are as honest as other men and no more so. They 
have, with others, the same passions for party, for 
power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim 



1 86 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

is ^^boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictioneviy^ and 
their power the more dangerous as they are In office 
for life, and not responsible, as the other function- 
aries are, to the elective control. ... I know no safe 
depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but 
the people themselves; and If we think them not 
enlightened enough to exercise their control with a 
wholesome discretion, the remedy Is not to take It 
from them, but to inform their discretion by education. 

A case illustrating how judges may differ is 
that of Coppage vs, Kansas, decided by the 
Supreme Court of the United States, January 
25, 191 5. It was this: There was a statute of 
the State of Kansas forbidding employers to 
exact from employees, as a condition of secur- 
ing or retaining employment, a promise not to 
join or retain membership In a labor organiza- 
tion. The local court found a defendant guilty 
of this offense and the judgment was affirmed 
by the Supreme Court of Kansas. The case was 
appealed to the Supreme Court of the United 
States on the ground that the statute as con- 
strued was in conflict with that provision of the 
Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of 
the United States which declares that no State 
shall deprive any person of liberty or property 
without due process of law. The majority of 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 187 

the court held that if freedom to contract is to 
be preserved, the employer must be left at lib- 
erty to decide for himself whether such mem- 
bership by his employee is consistent with the 
satisfactory performance of the duties of the 
employment. The minority of the court agreed 
with the Kansas court, which took the view that 
employees are not financially able to be as in- 
dependent in making contracts for selling their 
labor as employers in buying it, and that the 
statute did not go beyond the legitimate exer- 
cise of the police power. Here are opposing 
views of the same statute, the majority view 
being held by six members of the court and the 
minority view by three. Who shall say which is 
right? Upon this question of fact, the minority 
view certainly shows the trend of thought at 
the present time when we recognize that asso- 
ciations of employees are necessary to place 
them on an equality with their employers in 
bargaining for the sale of service. It is on this 
class of cases in the lower courts that the recall 
of judicial decisions would operate. 

Evidence of a recent change of attitude to- 
ward laws involving an exercise of the police 
power is found in the subject-matter of three 



i88 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

cases much criticized by Roosevelt. In Sarah 
Knisley vs. Pratt, 148 N.Y. 372, decided in 
February, 1896, the court held that a woman 
employee who had assumed the risk of operat- 
ing a dangerous machine, not safeguarded as 
the law required, could not recover for the loss 
of an arm. This case was overruled in Fitz- 
water vs. Warren, 206 N.Y. 355, decided in 
October, 191 2. The court held in this case that 
a servant does not assume the risk caused by a 
master's violation of the law. 

In People vs. Williams, 189 N.Y. 131, decided 
in June, 1907, the court held unconstitutional 
a provision in the Labor Law of New York 
which prohibited the employment of an adult 
female in a factory before six o'clock in the 
morning or after nine o'clock in the evening. 
The reason given was that it 

violates the constitutional provisions guaranteeing 
to every citizen the right to pursue any lawful em- 
ployment in a lawful manner, and is discrimina- 
tive against female citizens in denying to them equal 
rights with men with respect to liberty of person, or 
of contract. It cannot be upheld as a proper exercise 
of the police power, having for its purpose the preser- 
vation of the health of female citizens, since it arbi- 
trarily takes away the right of a woman to labor in 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 189 

a factory during the prohibited hours without any 
reference to the number of hours of such labor or the 
healthfulness of the employment. 

On March 26, 191 5, the Court of Appeals, In 
People vs. Schweinler Press, 214 N.Y. 395, sus- 
tained a similar statute providing "that no 
woman shall work in any factory In the State 
before six o'clock In the morning or after ten 
o'clock In the evening," and held that the law 
entitled "Period of rest at night for women" 
violated no provision of the Federal or State 
Constitution. 

In Ives vs. South Buffalo R.R. Co., 201 N.Y. 
271, decided March, 191 1, the court held un- 
constitutional, under both Federal and State 
Constitutions, a provision relating to "work- 
men's compensation In certain dangerous em- 
ployments." Among other things, the court held 
that 

the right given to the employee by this statute does 
not preserve to the employer the "due process" of 
law guaranteed by the Constitution, for it authorizes 
the taking of the employer's property without his 
consent and without his fault. 

The State Constitution was subsequently 
amended to obviate the difficulty found by the 



190 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

court. The Federal Constitution remained un- 
unchanged. 

In Jenson vs. Southern Pacific, 215 N.Y. 514, 
decided in July, 191 5, the court held that the 
Workmen's Compensation Law 

is not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment of the 
United States Constitution for taking property with- 
out due process of law . . . and is a valid enactment 
within the police power of the State for the promo- 
tion of the general welfare. 

I think that the real difference, on this sub- 
ject, between the position of the conservative 
of open mind and Roosevelt Is not so much the 
end to be sought as the method to pursue. The 
conservative, and I am one, thinks it wiser to 
wait for public opinion, changing as it does with 
changing conditions, to have its effect upon the 
judicial mind; or, if necessary, to resort to an 
amendment of the Constitution, State or Na- 
tional. Roosevelt, impatient to reach the goal, 
desired some more immediate influence of pub- 
lic opinion upon this class of judicial decisions. 
That he is lacking in respect for or confidence 
in our judicial system is not true. 

In his special message of January, 1908, he 
said: — 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 191 

Most certainly it behooves us all to treat with the 
utmost respect the high office of judge; and our 
judges, as a whole, are brave and upright men . . . 
the judges stand in character and service above all 
other men among their fellow servants of the public. 
There is all the greater need that the few who fail In 
this great office, who fall below this high standard of 
integrity, of wisdom, of sympathetic understanding 
and of courage should have their eyes opened to the 
needs of their countrymen. 

Two books had great influence upon Roose- 
velt in his consideration of this subject which 
led to the remedy he proposed known as the 
"Recall of Judicial Decisions." One, called 
"Moral Overstrain," was written in 1906 by 
George W. Alger. The chapter which particu- 
larly attracted Roosevelt's attention was that 
on "Some Equivocal Rights of Labor." This 
states the wrongs to be remedied. The case 
there related of the Knisley girl who lost her 
arm in a machine she was operating was the 
basis of Roosevelt's story, "Sarah Knislcy's 
Arm," printed originally in "Collier's Weekly," 
in March, 1913. 

The other book, which recognized the danger of 
the misuse of power by the courts, was "Legal 
Essays," by James Bradley Thayer, LL.D., late 



192 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Weld Professor of Law in Harvard University, 
published in 1908. In the first chapter on 
"The Origin and Scope of the American Doc- 
trine of Constitutional Law," prepared in 1893, 
Professor Thayer proposes this question : — 

How did our American doctrine, which allows to 
the judiciary the power to declare legislative acts 
unconstitutional, and to treat them as null, come 
about, and what is the true scope of it? 

Later, Professor Thayer says: — 

When at last this power of the judiciary was every- 
where established, and added to the other bulwarks 
of our written constitutions, how was the power to 
be conceived of? 

And he answers the question, "Strictly as a 
judicial one," and then goes on to say: — 

Again, where the power of the judiciary did have 
place, its whole scope was this; namely, to determine 
for the mere purpose of deciding a litigated question 
properly submitted to the court, whether a particu- 
lar disputed exercise of power was forbidden by the 
Constitution. In doing this the court was so to dis- 
charge its ofhce as not to deprive another department 
of any of its proper power, or to limit it in the proper 
range of its discretion. Not merely, then, do these 
questions, when presenting themselves in the courts 
for judicial action, call for a peculiarly large method 
in the treatment of them, but especially they require 
an allowance to be made by the judges for the vast 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 193 

and not definable range of legislative power and 
choice, for that wide margin of considerations which 
address themselves only to the practical judgment 
of a legislative body. Within that margin, as among 
all these legislative considerations, the constitutional 
lawmakers must be allowed a free foot. In so far as 
legislative choice, ranging here unfettered, may select 
one form of action or another, the judges must not 
interfere, since their question is a naked judicial one. 
Moreover, such is the nature of this particular 
judicial question that the preliminary determination 
by the legislature is a fact of very great importance, 
since the constitutions expressly entrust to the legis- 
lature this determination; they cannot act without 
making it. 

And he makes the following quotation from 
5 Mass. 524, 533: — 

It is true that the legislature, in consequence of 
their construction of the constitution, cannot make 
laws repugnant to it. But every department of gov- 
ernment, invested with certain constitutional powers, 
must, in the first instance, but not exclusively, be the 
judge of its powers, or it could not act. And certainly 
the construction of the constitution by the legislature 
ought to have great weight, and not be overruled, 
unless manifestly erroneous. 

Roosevelt was particularly impressed by the 
following quotation from an opinion by Mr. 
Chief Justice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania, in 
1811: — 



194 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

For weighty reasons, it has been assumed as a 
principle in constitutional construction by the Su- 
preme Court of the United States, by this court, 
and every other court of reputation in the United 
States, that an act of the legislature is not to be 
declared void unless the violation of the constitution 
is so manifest as to leave no room for reasonable 
doubt. 

And also by the following quotation from an 
opinion by Mr. Justice Charlton, in Georgia, in 
1808, upon the manner in which this power 
should be exercised by the court: — 

No nice doubts, no critical exposition of words, no 
abstract rules of interpretation, suitable in a contest 
between individuals, ought to be resorted to in decid- 
ing on the constitutional operation of a statute. This 
violation of a constitutional right ought to be as 
obvious to the comprehension of every one as an 
axiomatic truth, as that the parts are equal to the 
whole. I shall endeavor to illustrate this: the first 
section of the second article of the constitution de- 
clares that the executive function shall be vested in 
the governor. Now, if the legislature were to vest 
the executive power in a standing committee of the 
House of Representatives, every mind would at once 
perceive the unconstitutionality of the statute. The 
judiciary would be authorized without hesitation to 
declare the act unconstitutional. But when it remains 
doubtful whether the legislature have or have not 
trespassed on the constitution, a conflict ought to be 



RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS 195 

avoided, because there is a possibility in such a case 
of the constitution being with the legislature. 

And again by the following quotation from 
an opinion by Chancellor Waties, of South 
Carolina, in 1812, who said upon this subject; — 

. . . The interference of the judiciary with legisla- 
tive acts, if frequent or on dubious grounds, might 
occasion so great a jealousy of this power and so 
general a prejudice against it as to lead to measures 
ending in the total overthrow of the independence 
of the judges, and so of the best preservative of their 
constitution. The validity of the law ought not, then, 
to be questioned unless it is so obviously repugnant 
to the constitution that, when pointed out by the 
judges, all men of sense and reflection in the commu- 
nity may perceive the repugnancy. By such a cautious 
exercise of this judicial check, no jealousy of it will 
be excited, the public confidence in it will be pro- 
moted, and its salutary effects be justly and fully 
appreciated. 

I am not contending that Roosevelt was 
right in his conclusions, with which I did not 
agree, but am merely reciting the processes 
through which his mind passed in reaching 
them, and attempting to make clear the fact 
that they were the result of long reflection and 
careful investigation. 



CHAPTER V 

Roosevelt's personal characteristics — 
conclusion 

IN what I have written, I have sought to 
lay the foundation for certain conclusions in 
regard to the character and accomplishments of 
Theodore Roosevelt, to which I will add the 
reasons as I see them for his great popularity 
and extraordinary success in so many distinct 
fields of human endeavor. In tracing his his- 
tory, I think I have demonstrated that his 
political advancement was in no way due to 
anything he consciously did with that end in 
view. 

He was never an extreme party man. I 
think that "Harper's Weekly," which I have 
quoted, stated his position correctly, in 1883, 
when it said: — 

Mr. Roosevelt holds the soundest views upon pub- 
lic questions with the feehng that the Republican 
party is the organization which, from its traditional 
principles and the character of its membership, is 
more likely wisely to secure the public welfare. 

Roosevelt has always regarded a party as a 




l'f/i'/ri</ht hi/ ('<nn/>hrll Stmlio, l^l.'i 

MR. AND MRS ROOSEVELT WITH THKIR GRANDSON 
RICHARD DERBY, Jk. 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 197 

means to an end, and when, in his opinion, it 
ceases to be an instrument for good, he is ready 
to cast it aside. That is a very different feeling 
from that to which I have referred of the man 
to whom ^'it was Httle short of treason to vote 
any other than the RepubHcan ticket/' 

Roosevelt has always been a radical "demo- 
crat." Of course, I use the word in its broader 
sense and not as the designation of a party. 
He said so in his Oxford address. He once said 
to me at Oyster Bay after he had finished his 
term as President: "I am a democrat and a 
radical. I like to go to the Lodge here and sit 
on the benches while my cousin's gardener pre- 
sides." 

Earlier in this sketch I introduced Roose- 
velt's speech seconding the nomination of Mr. 
Lynch as temporary chairman of the 1884 Na- 
tional Convention, in which he said: — 

Let each man stand accountable to those whom he 
represents for his vote. Let no man be able t*^ shelter 
himself behind the shield of his State. What we say 
is, that one of the cardinal doctrines of the American 
political government is the accountability of each 
man to his people. 

Here we find, over thirty years ago, the same 

idea that later found expression in the direct 



198 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

primary, the initiative and the referendum, the 
direct and immediate connection of the people 
with the thing done, as in the case of the recall 
of judicial decisions. 

He always spoke of himself with extreme 
modesty. I remember that at the twenty-fifth 
anniversary of the graduation of our class, while 
he was President, he said in substance that he 
was not a great man, that there were very few 
such, but that he had improved his opportuni- 
ties. For example, said he: — 

Many other men have had the same experience in 
the West and could have raised a regiment in the 
Spanish War as I did, but they did not. I was afraid 
at first that they would call the regiment "Teddy's 
Terrors," which would have covered it with ridicule. 
I did not want any name, but "Rough Riders" was 
the one that finally stuck. 

It was a necessity to get this regiment into action, 
otherwise it would have been laughed at. We came 
near being left behind, and I admit that I pulled every 
wire in sight to get that regiment to Cuba, and we 
got there. If we had not, I should never have been 
President. 

Speaking of the Panama matter, he said: "I 
had to act quickly, and I did — and we are now 
building the canal.'' Criticism of his action did 
not create in his mind any doubt as to its 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 199 

righteousness. Speaking in Denver in 1905, he 

said: — 

It is perhaps unnecessary for me to say that I am 
perfectly aware that many most admirable gentle- 
men disagree with me in my action toward the Pan- 
ama Canal. But I am in a wholly unrepentant frame 
of mind in reference thereto. The ethical conception 
upon which I acted was that I did not intend that 
Uncle Sam should be held up while he was doing a 
great work for himself and all mankind. 

It seems to be agreed that the responsibility 
for the settlement of the difficulties between 
Colombia and Panama, which made possible 
the building of the canal, was assumed by 
President Roosevelt. John Hay was then Sec- 
retary of State. From Mr. Hay's letters I make 
the following quotations: — 

December 8, 1903, he wrote to Mr. James 

Ford Rhodes: — 

It Is hard for me to understand how any one can 
criticize our action In Panama on the grounds upon 
which it Is ordinarily attacked. The matter came on 
us with amazing celerity. We had to decide on the 
instant whether we would take possession of the 
ends of the railroad and keep the traffic clear, or 
whether we would stand back and let those gentle- 
men cut each other's throats for an indefinite time, 
and destroy whatever remnant of our property and 
our interests we had there. I had no hesitation as to 



200 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the proper course to take, and have had no doubt of 
the propriety of it since. 

January 20, 1904, to Professor George P. 
Fisher, of Yale University: — 

Some of our greatest scholars, in their criticisms of 
public life, suffer from the defect of arguing from 
pure reason and taking no account of circumstances. 
While I agree that no circumstances can ever justify 
a Government in doing wrong, the question as to 
whether the Government has acted rightly or wrongly 
can never be justly judged without the circumstances 
being considered. I am sure that if the President had 
acted differently when, the 3d of November, he was 
confronted by a critical situation which might easily 
have turned to disaster, the attacks which are now 
made on him would have been ten times more viru- 
lent and more effective. He must have done exactly 
as he did, or the only alternative would have been 
an indefinite duration of bloodshed and devastation 
through the whole extent of the Isthmus. It was a 
time to act and not to theorize, and my judgment at 
least is clear that he acted rightly. 

Roosevelt utilized to the utmost every oppor- 
tunity; for example, he spent some time on his 
ranch. This was a very common experience. 
Many men have done the same thing, but the 
experience in Roosevelt's case led to the writing 
of the "Winning of the West" by American 
pioneer explorers. That was not all: it led to 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 201 

the writing of several most interesting books on 
frontier life, and then to the forming of the 
Rough Riders in the Cuban War which, Roose- 
velt said, made him President. Of course, I 
should qualify this; if the Rough Riders had 
not made Roosevelt President, some other influ- 
ence would. What made him President was the 
cumulative force of his achievements brought 
into a high light through picturesque circum- 
stances made possible by his unique personality. 
I do not find any evidence that Roosevelt 
became a politician after he became President. 
I think that enough can be found in what I 
have written to demonstrate my right to this 
belief. No politician would have invited Booker 
Washington to the White House to dinner. 
No politician would at the same time have 
denounced the abuses tolerated or practiced by 
organized capital and organized labor. No poli- 
tician would have discharged the negro regi- 
ment at Brownsville, or been so regardless of 
the amenities in dealing with Congress, an er- 
ror and a weakness, but not the error of a self- 
seeking man. We often heard when Roosevelt 
was filling out McKinley's unexpired term that 
labor was against him, that capital was against 



202 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

him, that the politicians were against him; but 
when in 1904 the votes were counted, it be- 
came quite apparent that the people, or most 
of them, were with him. The fact is they be- 
lieved in him. Of course, it must be remem- 
bered that Roosevelt had a most extraordinary 
personality. He had, I think, more genuine 
sympathy with more classes of people than 
any man ever in public life in this country. I 
can best illustrate what I mean by two stories, 
both of which 1 heard him tell. 

It seems that when he was hunting in Colo- 
rado several years ago, he met a cowboy who 
had been with him with the Rough Riders in 
Cuba. 

The man came up to speak to Roosevelt, and 
said, "Mr. President, I have been in jail a year 
for killing a gentleman." 

*'How did you do it?" asked the President, 
meaning to inquire as to the circumstances. 

*' Thirty-eight on a forty-five frame," replied 
the man, thinking that the only interest the 
President had was that of a comrade who 
wanted to know with what kind of a tool the 
trick was done. Now, I will venture to say that 
to no other President, from Washington down 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 203 

to and including Wilson, would the man-killer 
have made that response. This same live sym- 
pathy existed between Roosevelt and every class 
of men with whom he ever came in contact, 
and he has come in contact with all classes from 
kings and princes to Digger Indians. 

Another old comrade, sure of his sympathy, 
wrote from a jail in Arizona: — 

Dear Colonel: 

I am in trouble. I shot a lady in the eye, but I did 
not intend to hit the lady; I was shooting at my wife. 

Any one who wants to get some adequate 
notion of Roosevelt as a naturalist and lover of 
nature can do so in a most agreeable way by 
reading "Camping and Tramping," by John 
Burroughs. This book was written in 1907, and 
is descriptive of Roosevelt's trip to Yellowstone 
Park in 1903. The introduction should not be 
overlooked, because it contains a most charac- 
teristic letter from Roosevelt to Burroughs, 
written in 1892 in response to a suggestion from 
the latter that the European forms of animal 
life were, as a rule, larger and more hardy and 
prolific than the corresponding forms in this 
country, with which statement Roosevelt takes 
issue. 



204 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I have never been disturbed [Burroughs says] by 
the President's hunting trips. It is to such men as 
he that the big game legitimately belongs — men 
who regard it from the point of view of the naturalist 
as well as from that of the sportsman, who are inter- 
ested in its preservation, and who share with the 
world the delight they experience in the chase. Such 
a hunter as Roosevelt is as far removed from the 
game butcher as day is from night; and as for this 
killing of the "Varmints," — bears, cougars, and 
bobcats, — the fewer of these there are the better 
for the useful and beautiful game. 

In the trip to the Yellowstone, Burroughs 
said, "I was able to help him identify only one 
new bird; all tlie other birds he recognized as 
quickly as I did." 

The following story illustrates Roosevelt's 

tender and sympathetic nature: — 

Near a little brown school house [Burroughs 
writes], by the railroad track, the schoolma'am and 
her scholars were drawn up in line to see the Presi- 
dential train pass. The President was at luncheon, 
but leaving the table rushed to the platform and 
waved his napkin. When he came back he said: 
*'Those children wanted to see the President of the 
United States, and I could not disappoint them. 
They may never have another chance. What a deep 
impression such things make when we are young." 

There was a reception at Medora where 
Roosevelt's old ranch was located. Shaking one 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 205 

man by the hand, he said: "You once mended 
my gunlock for me, — put on a new hammer." 
''Yes," said the old chap, "I'm the man, Mr. 
President." "Hell-Roaring Bill Jones" was 
missing, he began to celebrate so early that he 
was "all in" before the train arrived. 

What other hunter in Africa would have had 
a "pigskin library" and have given the reason 
for the presence of every book in it? He was a 
constant surprise, even to those who knew him 
best, in some manifestation of his activity. I 
remember that one of my brothers wrote an 
article in the "Atlantic" of May, 1908, entitled 
"Shall We Hunt and Fish — The Confessions 
of a Sentimentalist." In it he was somewhat 
critical of Roosevelt's views of hunting as ex- 
pressed in "Outdoor Pastimes of an American 
Hunter" in which Roosevelt said, "There is no 
need to exercise much patience with men who 
protest against field sports, unless, indeed, they 
are logical vegetarians of the flabbiest Hindoo 
type." I knew when the magazine was coming 
out, and on the day bought a copy on my way 
home from the Capitol. The next morning, I 
went to the White House on some errand, and 
when Roosevelt came out of his office to make 



2o6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the rounds of those gathered in the Cabinet 
room, I said, when he got along to me, "]\Ir. 
President, here is an article written by a 
brother of mine in which he throws some stones 
at you." "Oh!" said Roosevelt, "I have read 
the article and agree with a good deal of it — 
but," said he, "you know you must always 
have fresh meat in camp." He had read it before 
I had. 

He always invited confidence and was most 
delicate and sympathetic in his response to any 
expression of sentiment. I remember that once 
I sent him a letter my mother had written me, 
referring to a recent message of his, of which 
the following is a copy: — 

Letter from my Mother 

February 2, 1908. 
I am greatly interested in reading now and then 
a little about you in the papers. How perplexing 
everything is, how difficult to know the right course 
to take. I read with deep interest the President's 
message. I liked it all. If public credit is to be shaken 
by exposing a wrong, it ought to be shaken; the men 
guilty of wrong are the ones who weaken public 
credit, not the President who exposes them. How 
corrupt the politicians who would keep up public 
credit at any cost. The right is the "only thing that 
will wash" in the long run, so President Eliot seems 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 207 

to think about the President's policy. There would 
be no difficulty in dying game in defense of the right, 
if only we were dead sure what right is. It is a help 
to feel that our views of right must help along the 
real right in the grand economy of things. To be 
sure that you are not swerved in your conscientious 
decisions by any thought of your own advantage is 
the great thing, the only thing if you would be a man 
"without a cross." 

Two days later I received the following reply: 

The White House, Washington, 
February 5, 1908. 

I very sincerely appreciate your having shown me 
your mother's letter, which I return herewith. No 
wonder you are devoted to her. What she says in 
her letter represents, I am confident, the principles 
for which this nation must stand if it is to endure. I 
am very much pleased at the dear lady's high spirit 
as well as her conscientiousness. I love that sentence 
of hers, "There would be no difficulty in dying game, 
in defense of the right, if only we were dead sure 
what right is." That is the kind of sentence I like to 
read. 

Letter to my Mother 

6 Feb'y, 1908, 

1721 Rhode Island Avenue, 

Washington, D.C. 

I liked your letter so much that acting (a some- 
what unusual thing for me) a little on impulse, I sent 
it to the President with the statement that it was 



2o8 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

the first time I had ever shown a letter of yours to 
another. 

His note in reply was so sympathetic that I think 
it will interest you. 

I read your letter and the President's to Slater 
[my son, a boy of twelve]. He said of yours, — *'Gee, 
it sounds like Abraham Lincoln." 



Roosevelt had time to do these things. Some- 
times apparently superficial signs indicate the 
great qualities that lie beneath. I was looking 
over his autobiography the other day, and the 
illustrations interested me. They did not so 
much suggest associations with the great men 
in this and other lands, as with old compan- 
ions in the Legislature or members of the police 
force, with social workers, and children of the 
slums; and when Roosevelt emerged from the 
atmosphere of kings and princes in Europe, he 
sought relief by telegraphing for Seth Bullock 
and his wife to meet him in London. Seth Bul- 
lock was at one time sheriff in the Black Hills 
district, who, the first time he met Roosevelt, 
said to him and his companions, "You see, by 
your looks I thought you were some kind of a 
tin-horn gambling outfit, and that I might have 
to keep an eye on you." This man later, as 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 209 

Roosevelt has said, "became, and has ever 
since remained, one of my stanchest and most 
valued friends," and he telegraphed for him 
because, as he said, *'by that time I felt that I 
just had to meet my own people, who spoke 
my neighborhood dialect." 

This is all real. No veneer of affectation can 
stand the stress of thirty years of public life. 
Roosevelt has been a great preacher as well as a 
great performer, and the combination has made 
him an immense power for good in our political, 
business, and social life. The following is typi- 
cal of much that he said: — 

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, 
but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil 
and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest 
form of success which comes, not to the man who 
desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does 
not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter 
toll, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate 
triumph. 

Far better It Is to dare mighty things, to win glori- 
ous triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than 
to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy 
much nor suffer much because they live in the gray 
twilight that knows not victory or defeat. 

Fine expression of his dauntless spirit; and, 

again: — 



210 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

On behalf of all our people, on behalf no less of the 
honest man of means than of the honest man who 
earns each day's livelihood by that day's sweat of 
his brow, it is necessary to insist upon honesty in 
business and politics alike, in all walks of life, in big 
things and in little things; upon just and fair dealings 
as between man and man. ... In the work we of this 
generation are in there is, thanks to the Almighty, 
no danger of bloodshed and no use for the sword; but 
there is grave need of those stern qualities shown 
alike by the men of the North and the men of the 
South in the dark days when each valiantly battled 
for the light as it was given him to see the light. This 
spirit should be our spirit, as we strive to bring nearer 
the day when greed and trickery and cunning shall 
be trampled under foot by those who fight for the 
righteousness that exaltcth a nation. 

Sometimes, in almost a whimsical manner, 

Roosevelt impresses a lesson to be derived from 

some Biblical quotation. In "Character and 

Success," for example, published in March, 

1900, he said: — 

The Bible always inculcates the need of the posi- 
tive no less than negative virtues, although certain 
people who profess to teach Christianity are apt to 
dwell wholly on the negative; we are bidden not 
merely to be harmless as doves, but also as wise as 
serpents. It is very much easier to carry out the for- 
mer part of the order than the latter; while, on the 
other hand, it is of much more importance for the 
good of mankind that our goodness should be accom- 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 211 

panied by wisdom than that we should merely be 
harmless. If with the serpent wisdom we unite the 
serpent guile, terrible will be the damage we do; and 
if with the best of Intentions, we can only manage to 
deserve the epithet of "harmless," it Is hardly worth 
while to have lived in the world at all. 

His power of vigorous statement was great. 
When he was asked to abandon certain investi- 
gations as to the alleged violation of the Anti- 
Trust Law which were said to Implicate some 
wealthy contributors to the campaign fund in 
the Taft campaign, Roosevelt wrote Attorney- 
General Bonaparte as follows: — 

Oyster Bay, New York, 1908. 

. . . What a scoundrel must be! If he comes 

to you again I shall be really delighted to have you 
tell him straight from me that the investigation will 
be pressed with the utmost energy to a conclusion, 
and that this will be done whether his clients con- 
tribute a million for the election of Taft or a million 
for the election of Bryan, or whether they fail to 
contribute a cent to either side. I would really like 
to have you give him just this message from me, and 
put it in writing If you desire. 

And yet he is a man of the most lovable quali- 
ties. A Catholic priest once said he had sat on 
the platform near Roosevelt at some meeting 
— "The man had not spoken three minutes 



212 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

before I loved him, and had any one tried to 
molest him, 1 could have torn him to pieces." 
Nor is there anything of arrogance about him. 
He never claimed to be preeminent in any field 
of human endeavor. He never laid claim to any- 
thing but doing the best he could; he freely ad- 
mitted that he made mistakes. A characteristic 
story is that of a friend who took him to task 
for some mistake he had made in one of his ap- 
pointments: "My dear sir," replied the Presi- 
dent, "where you know of one mistake I have 
made, I know of ten.'* 

He talked with a freedom that fairly took 
one's breath away. I remember once at luncheon 
at the White House, In speaking of two men, 
both of whom were then living and one of whom 
was then in the Senate, he said, "I think that 
is the more adroit rascal." 

A story which I heard of Roosevelt nearly at 
first hand, and which I believe has never been 
in print, admirably illustrates his great cour- 
age or lack of fear. Mr. Henry White told it 
to Senator Lodge, who told it to me. It seems 
that Mr. White said to Roosevelt, speaking of 
his being shot in Milwaukee "I think you were 
foolhardy to make a speech after you had been 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 213 

shot." "Why," said Roosevelt In reply, "you 
know I did n't think I had been mortally 
wounded. If I had been mortally wounded, I 
would have bled from the lungs. When I got 
into the motor I coughed hard three times, and 
put my hand up to my mouth; as I did not find 
any blood, I thought that I was not seriously 
hurt, and went on with my speech." 

I began to write these notes In November, 

1914, and continued at Intervals for several 
months. As I write on the train on April 30, 

191 5, between San Francisco and Portland, 
Oregon, I have just been reading such of the 
testimony as Is reported In the papers In the 
pending libel suit brought by Mr. Barnes, of 
New York, against Mr. Roosevelt. 1 I find 
nothing In Roosevelt's testimony which Is not 
perfectly consistent with his acts and speech 
for the past twenty years, most of which can 
be found recorded In his autobiography. When 
he entered public life, he found certain condi- 
tions; he dealt with them as best he could. To 
have refused to work with men of whose every 
act he did not approve would have meant that 

^ The jury in May, 1915, brought in a verdict favorable to 
Roosevelt. 



214 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

he could accomplish nothing. He always acted 
upon the adage that "half a loaf is better than 
no bread." As he wrote in 1904: — 

A man who goes into the actual battles of the 
political world must prepare himself much as he 
would for the struggle in any other branch of our life. 
He must be prepared to meet men of far lower ideals 
than his own, and to face things, not as he would wish 
them, but as they are. He must not lose his own high 
ideal, and yet he must face the fact that the majority 
of the men with whom he must work have lower 
ideals. He must stand firmly for what he believes, 
and yet he must realize that political action, to be 
elTcctive, must be the joint action of many men, and 
that he must sacrifice somewhat of his own opinions 
to those of his associates if he ever hopes to see his 
desires take practical shape. 

Roosevelt has wisely acted upon this prin- 
ciple. In the fallibility of human judgment, he 
may sometimes have gone too far with this 
man or that, or perhaps not far enough, but his 
policy has not changed. 

Whatever many of his friends may have 
wished, Roosevelt made up his own mind in 
191 2, and in the campaigns that followed in- 
flicted and received many wounds. If he caused 
suffering, he endured much himself. No one 



PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 215 

would feel more keenly than he the loss of the 
political sympathy and support of those of his 
old friends who did not follow him, and this is to 
me convincing proof of his confidence in the 
righteousness of his cause. To many of them, to 
me, I am sure, parting company with him was 
deeply painful. I count it among the sorrows of 
my life. He was imbued with the spirit of the 
crusader; he believed that he was leading a great 
cause, and that in doing so he was serving the 
best interests of his countrymen. A leader on 
the field of battle sees nothing but his goal, and 
in his progress tramples alike on friend and foe. 
Such was Roosevelt's relation to the conflict. 
This Is the reply to the charge that he wantonly 
maiincu and bruised many of his former asso- 
ciates who differed with him politically. 

Roosevelt had the choice, at the end of his 
presidential term, between resting upon his 
accomplishments, secure in the position of first 
citizen of the Republic and idolized by his 
countrymen, and again entering the arena of 
political strife to battle for the causes he be- 
lieved in. He chose the latter course, in which 
personally he had everything to lose and noth- 
ing to gain. "Spend and be spent" was the 



2i6 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

motto emblazoned on his shield, which was al- 
ways found in the forefront of battle. Who will 
say that he should or could have followed any 
other course; or, with our poor mortal vision, 
that in the end his countrymen may not profit 
by what many of his friends then regarded as 
his great sacrifice? 

"In the long fight for righteousness the 
watchword for all of us is, * Spend and be spent.' 
It is of little matter whether any one man fails 
or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is 
the cause of mankind." 



THE END 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE 

(An Address by Theodore Roosevelt at Carnegie Hall, New York 
City, under the auspices of the Civic Forura, Wednesday evening, 
March 20, 1912.) 

The great fundamental issue now before the Re- 
publican party and before our people can be stated 
briefly. It is, Are the American people fit to govern 
themselves, to rule themselves, to control them- 
selves? I believe they are. My opponents do not. 
I believe in the right of the people to rule. I believe 
that the majority of the plain people of the United 
States will, day in and day out, make fewer mistakes 
in governing themselves than any smaller class or 
body of men, no matter what their training, will 
make in trying to govern them. I believe, again, 
that the American people are, as a whole, capable 
of self-control and of learning by their mistakes. 
Our opponents pay lip-loyalty to this doctrine; but 
they show their real beliefs by the way in which they 
champion every device to make the nominal rule of 
the people a sham. 

I have scant patience with this talk of the tyranny 
of the majority. Whenever there is tyranny of the 
majority, I shall protest against it with all my heart 
and soul. But we are to-day suffering from the tyr- 
anny of minorities. It is a small minority that is 



220 APPENDIX 

grabbing our coal deposits, our water-powers, and 
our harbor fronts. A small minority is battening 
on the sale of adulterated foods and drugs. It is a 
small minority that lies behind monopolies and 
trusts. It is a small minority that stands behind the 
present law of master and servant, the sweat-shops, 
and the whole calendar of social and industrial 
injustice. It is a small minority that is to-day using 
our convention system to defeat the will of a ma- 
jority of the people In the choice of delegates to 
the Chicago Convention. The only tyrannies from 
which men, women, and children are suffering In real 
life are the tyrannies of minorities. 

If the majority of the American people were in 
fact tyrannous over the minority, if democracy had 
no greater self-control than empire, then indeed no 
written words which our forefathers put into the 
Constitution could stay that tyranny. 

No sane man who has been familiar with the gov- 
ernment of this country for the last twenty years 
will complain that we have had too much of the rule 
of the majority. The trouble has been a far differ- 
ent one — that, at many times and in many locali- 
ties, there have held public office In the States and 
in the Nation men who have. In fact, served not 
the whole people, but some special class or special 
interest. I am not thinking only of those special 
interests which by grosser methods, by bribery and 
crime, have stolen from the people. I am thinking 
as much of their respectable allies and figureheads, 
who have ruled and legislated and decided as if In 
some way the vested rights of privilege had a first 



APPENDIX 221 

mortgage on the whole United States, while the rights 
of all the people were merely an unsecured debt. Am 
I overstating the case? Have our political leaders 
always, or generally, recognized their duty to the 
people as anything more than a duty to disperse the 
mob, see that the ashes are taken away, and distrib- 
ute patronage? Have our leaders always, or gener- 
ally, worked for the benefit of human beings, to in- 
crease the prosperity of all the people, to give to each 
some opportunity of living decently and bringing up 
his children well? The questions need no answer. 

Now, there has sprung up a feeling deep in the hearts 
of the people — not of the bosses and professional 
politicians, not of the beneficiaries of special privilege 
— a pervading belief of thinking men that when the 
majority of the people do in fact, as well as in theory, 
rule, then the servants of the people will come more 
quickly to answer and obey, not the commands of the 
special interests, but those of the whole people. To 
reach toward that end the Progressives of the Repub- 
lican party in certain States have formulated certain 
proposals for change in the form of the state govern- 
ment — certain new "checks and balances" which 
may check and balance the special interests and their 
allies. That is their purpose. Now, turn for a mo- 
ment to their proposed methods. 

First, there are the "initiative and referendum," 
which are so framed that if the Legislatures obey 
the command of some special interest, and obsti- 
nately refuse the will of the majority, the majority 
may step in and legislate directly. No man would 
say that it was best to conduct all legislation by 



222 APPENDIX 

direct vote of the people, — it would mean the loss 
of deliberation, of patient consideration, — but, on 
the other hand, no one whose mental arteries have 
not long since hardened can doubt that the proposed 
changes are needed when the Legislatures refuse to 
carry out the will of the people. The proposal is a 
method to reach an undeniable evil. Then there is 
the recall of public officers — the principle that an 
officer chosen by the people who is unfaithful may 
be recalled by vote of the majority before he finishes 
his term. I will speak of the recall of judges in a 
moment, — leave that aside, — but as to the other 
officers, I have heard no argument advanced against 
the proposition, save that it will make the public 
officer timid and always currying favor with the 
mob. That argument means that you can fool all 
the people all the time, and is an avowal of disbelief 
in democracy. If it be true, — and I believe it is 
not, — it is less important than to stop those pub- 
lic officers from currying favor with the interests. 
Certain States may need the recall, others may not; 
where the term of elective office is short, it may be 
quite needless; but there are occasions when it meets 
a real evil, and provides a needed check and balance 
against the special interests. 

Then there is the direct primary, — the real one, 
not the New York one, — and that, too, the Pro- 
gressives offer as a check on the special interests. 
Most clearly of all does it seem to me that this 
change is wholly good — for every State. The sys- 
tem of party government is not written in our Con- 
stitutions, but it is none the less a vital and essential 



APPENDIX 223 

part of our form of government. In that system 
the party leaders should serve and carry out the will 
of their own party. There is no need to show how 
far that theory is from the facts, or to rehearse the 
vulgar thieving partnerships of the corporations and 
the bosses, or to show how many times the real 
government lies in the hands of the boss, protected 
from the commands and revenge of the voters by his 
puppets in office and the power of patronage. We 
need not be told how he is thus entrenched nor how 
hard he is to overthrow. The facts stand out in the 
history of nearly every State in the Union. They are 
blots on our pohtical system. The direct primary 
will give the voters a method ever ready to use, by 
which the party leader shall be made to obey their 
command. The direct primary, if accompanied by a 
stringent corrupt practices act, will help break up the 
corrupt partnership of corporations and politicians. 

My opponents charge that two things in my pro- 
gramme are wrong because they intrude into the 
sanctuary of the judiciary. The first is the recall of 
judges; and the second, the review by the people 
of judicial decisions on certain constitutional ques- 
tions. I have said again and again that I do not 
advocate the recall of judges in all States and in all 
communities. In my own State I do not advocate 
it or believe it to be needed, for in this State our 
trouble lies not with corruption on the bench, but 
with the effort by the honest but wrong-headed 
judges to thwart the people in their struggle for social 
justice and fair-dealing. The integrity of our judges 
from Marshall to White and Holmes — and to Cullen 



224 APPENDIX 

and many others in our own State — is a fine page 
of American history. But — I say it soberly — de- 
mocracy has a right to approach the sanctuary of 
the courts when a special interest has corruptly found 
sanctuary there; and this is exactly what has hap- 
pened in some of the States where the recall of the 
judges is a living issue. I would far more willingly 
trust the whole people to judge such a case than some 
special tribunal — perhaps appointed by the same 
power that chose the judge — if that tribunal is not 
itself really responsible to the people and is ham- 
pered and clogged by the technicalities of impeach- 
ment proceedings. 

I have stated that the courts of the several States 
— not always but often — have construed the "due 
process" clause of the State Constitutions as if it 
prohibited the whole people of the State from adopt- 
ing methods of regulating the use of property so that 
human life, particularly the lives of the working- 
men, shall be safer, freer, and happier. No one can 
successfully impeach this statement. I have in- 
sisted that the true construction of "due process'* 
is that pronounced by Justice Holmes in delivering 
the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, when he said: "The police power 
extends to all the great public needs. It may be put 
forth in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held 
by the prevailing morality or strong and preponder- 
ant opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary 
to the public welfare." 

I insist that the decision of the New York Court of 
Appeals in the Ives case, which set aside the will of 



APPENDIX 225 

the majority of the people as to the compensation 
of injured workmen in dangerous trades, was intoler- 
able and based on a wrong political philosophy. I 
urge that in such cases where the courts construe the 
"due process" clause as if property rights, to the 
exclusion of human rights, had a first mortgage on the 
Constitution, the people may, after sober delibera- 
tion, vote, and finally determine, whether the law 
which the court set aside shall be valid or not. By 
this method can be clearly and finally ascertained 
the preponderant opinion of the people which Justice 
Holmes makes the test of "due process" in the case 
of laws enacted in the exercise of the police power. 
The ordinary methods now in vogue of amending 
the Constitution have in actual practice proved 
wholly inadequate to secure justice in such cases with 
reasonable speed, and cause intolerable delay and 
injustice, and those who stand against the changes 
I propose are champions of wrong and injustice, and 
of tyranny by the wealthy and the strong over the 
weak and the helpless. 

So that no man may misunderstand me, let me 
recapitulate: — 

(i) I am not proposing anything in connection 
with the Supreme Court of the United States, or 
with the Federal Constitution. 

(2) I am not proposing anything having any con- 
nection with ordinary suits, civil or criminal, as be- 
tween individuals. 

(3) I am not speaking of the recall of judges. 

(4) I am proposing merely that in a certain class of 
cases involving the police power, when a state court 



226 APPENDIX 

has set aside as unconstitutional a law passed by the 
Legislature for the general welfare, the question of 
the validity of the law — which should depend, as 
Justice Holmes so well phrases it, upon the prevailing 
morality or preponderant opinion — be submitted 
for final determination to a vote of the people, taken 
after due time for consideration. And I contend that 
the people, in the nature of things, must be better 
judges of what is the preponderant opinion than the 
courts, and that the courts should not be allowed to 
reverse the political philosophy of the people. My 
point is well illustrated by a recent decision of the 
Supreme Court, holding that the court would not 
take jurisdiction of a case involving the constitution- 
ality of the initiative and referendum laws of Oregon. 
The ground of the decision was that such a question 
was not judicial in its nature, but should be left for 
determination to the other coordinate departments 
of the Government. Is it not equally plain that the 
question whether a given social policy is for the pub- 
lic good is not of a judicial nature, but should be 
settled by the Legislature, or in the final instance by 
the people themselves.'* 

The President of the United States, Mr. Taft, 
devoted most of a recent speech to criticism of this 
proposition. He says that it "is utterly without 
merit or utility, and, instead of being ... in the in- 
terest of all the people, and of the stability of pop- 
ular government, is sowing the seeds of confusion 
and tyranny." (By this he, of course, means the 
tyranny of the majority, that is, the tyranny of the 
American people as a whole.) He also says that my 



APPENDIX 227 

proposal (which, as he rightly sees, is merely a pro- 
posal to give the people a real, instead of only a 
nominal, chance to construe and amend a State Con- 
stitution with reasonable rapidity) would make such 
amendment and interpretation "depend on the fever- 
ish, uncertain, and unstable determination of suc- 
cessive votes on different laws by temporary and 
changing majorities"; and that "it lays the axe at 
the root of the tree of well-ordered freedom, and sub- 
jects the guarantees of life, liberty, and property 
without remedy to the fitful impulse of a temporary 
majority of an electorate." 

This criticism is really less a criticism of my pro- 
posal than a criticism of all popular government. It 
is wholly unfounded, unless it is founded on the 
belief that the people are fundamentally untrust- 
worthy. If the Supreme Court's definition of " due 
process" in relation to the police power is sound, then 
an act of the Legislature to promote the collective 
interests of the community must be valid if it em- 
bodies a policy held by the prevailing morality or a 
preponderant opinion to be necessary to the public 
welfare. This is the question that I propose to sub- 
mit to the people. How can the prevailing moral- 
ity or a preponderant opinion be better and more 
exactly ascertained than by a vote of the people? 
The people must know better than the court what 
their own morality and their own opinion is. I ask 
that you, here, you and the others like you, you the 
people, be given the chance to state your own views 
of justice and public morality, and not sit meekly 
by and have your views announced for you by well- 



228 APPENDIX 

meaning adherents of outworn philosophies, who 
exalt the pedantry of formulas above the vital needs 
of human life. 

The object I have in view could probably be ac- 
complished by an amendment of the State Consti- 
tutions taking away from the courts the power to 
review the Legislature's determination of a policy 
of social justice, by defining "due process of law" 
in accordance with the views expressed by Justice 
Holmes for the Supreme Court. But my proposal 
seems to me more democratic and, I may add, less 
radical. For under the method I suggest the people 
may sustain the court as against the Legislature, 
whereas, if "due process" were defined in the Con- 
stitution, the decision of the Legislature would be 
final. 

Air. Taft's position is the position that has been 
held from the beginning of our Government, although 
not always so openly held, by a large number of repu- 
table and honorable men who, down at bottom, dis- 
trust popular government, and, when they must 
accept it, accept it with reluctance, and hedge it 
around with every species of restriction and check 
and balance, so as to make the power of the people as 
limited and as ineffective as possible. Mr. Taft fairly 
defines the issue when he says that our Government 
is and should be a government of all the people by a 
representative part of the people. This is an excellent 
and moderate description of an oligarchy. It defines 
our Government as a government of all the people by 
a few of the people. Mr. Taft, in his able speech, has 
made what is probably the best possible presentation 



APPENDIX 229 

of the case for those who feel In this manner. Essen- 
tially this view differs only in its expression from the 
view nakedly set forth by one of his supporters, 
Congressman Campbell. Congressman Campbell, in 
a public speech in New Hampshire, in opposing the 
proposition to give the people real and effective con- 
trol over all their servants, including the judges, 
stated that this was equivalent to allowing an appeal 
from the umpire to the bleachers. Doubtless Con- 
gressman Campbell was not himself aware of the 
cynical truthfulness with which he was putting the 
real attitude of those for whom he spoke. But it un- 
questionably is their real attitude. Mr. Campbell's 
conception of the part the American people should 
play in self-government is that they should sit on 
the bleachers and pay the price of admission, but 
should have nothing to say as to the contest which 
is waged in the arena by the professional politicians. 
Apparently Mr. Campbell ignores the fact that the 
American people are not mere onlookers at a game, 
that they have a vital stake in the contest, and that 
democracy means nothing unless they are able and 
willing to show that they are their own masters. 

I am not speaking jokingly, nor do I mean to be 
unkind; for I repeat that many honorable and well- 
meaning men of high character take this view, and 
have taken it from the time of the formation of the 
Nation. Essentially this view is that the Constitu- 
tion is a strait-jacket to be used for the control of an 
unruly patient — the people. Now, I hold that this 
view is not only false but mischievous, that our 
Constitutions are instruments designed to secure 



230 APPENDIX 

justice by securing the deliberate but effective ex- 
pression of the popular will; that the checks and 
balances are valuable as far, and onl/ so far, as they 
accomplish that deliberation; and that it is a warped 
and unworthy and improper construction of our form 
of government to see in it only a means of thwarting 
the popular will and of preventing justice. Mr. Taft 
says that "every class" should have a "voice" in the 
government. That seems to me a very serious mis- 
conception of the American political situation. The 
real trouble with us is that some classes have had too 
much voice. One of the most important of all the 
lessons to be taught and to be learned is that a man 
should vote, not as a representative of a class, but 
merely as a good citizen, whose prime interests are 
the same as those of all other good citizens. The 
belief in different classes, each having a voice in the 
government, has given rise to much of our present 
difficulty; for whosoever believes in these separate 
classes, each with a voice, inevitably, even although 
unconsciously, tends to work, not for the good of the 
whole people, but for the protection of some special 
class — usually that to which he himself belongs. 

The same principle applies when Mr. Taft says 
that the judiciary ought not to be "representative" 
of the people in the sense that the Legislature and 
the Executive are. This is perfectly true of the judge 
when he is performing merely the ordinary functions 
of a judge in suits between man and man. It is not 
true of the judge engaged in interpreting, for instance, 
the "due process" clause — where the judge is ascer- 
taining the preponderant opinion of the people (as 



APPENDIX 231 

Judge Holmes states it). When he exercises that 
function he has no right to let his political philosophy- 
reverse and thwart the will of the majority. In that 
function the judge must represent the people or he 
fails in the test the Supreme Court has laid down. 
Take the Workmen's Compensation Act here in New 
York. The legislators gave us a law in the interest of 
humanity and decency and fair dealing. In so doing 
they represented the people, and represented them 
well. Several judges declared that law constitutional 
in our State, and several courts in other States de- 
clared similar laws constitutional, and the Supreme 
Court of the Nation declared a similar law affecting 
men in interstate business constitutional; but the 
highest court in the State of New York, the Court of 
Appeals, declared that we, the people of New York, 
could not have such a law. I hold that in this case 
the legislators and the judges alike occupied repre- 
sentative positions; the difference was merely that 
the former represented us well and the latter repre- 
sented us ill. Remember that the legislators promised 
that law, and were returned by the people partly in 
consequence of such promise. That judgment of the 
people should not have been set aside unless it were 
irrational. Yet in the Ives case the New York Court 
of Appeals praised the policy of the law and the end 
it sought to obtain; and then declared that the people 
lacked power to do justice! 

Mr. Taft again and again, in quotations I have 
given and elsewhere through his speech, expresses his 
disbelief in the people when they vote at the polls. 
In one sentence he says that the proposition gives 



232 APPENDIX 

"powerful effect to the momentary impulse of a 
majority of an electorate and prepares the way for 
the possible exercise of the grossest tyranny." Else- 
where he speaks of the "feverish uncertainty" and 
"unstable determination" of laws by "temporary 
and changing majorities"; and again he says that 
the system I propose "would result in suspension or 
application of constitutional guarantees according 
to popular whim," which would destroy "all possi- 
ble consistency" in constitutional interpretation. I 
should much like to know the exact distinction that 
is to be made between what Mr. Taft calls "the fitful 
impulse of a temporary majority" when applied to 
a question such as that I raise and any other ques- 
tion. Remember that under my proposal to review 
a rule of decision by popular vote, amending or con- 
struing, to that extent, the Constitution, would cer- 
tainly take at least two years from the time of the 
election of the Legislature which passed the act. 
Now, only four months elapse between the nomina- 
tion and the election of a man as President, to fill for 
four years the most important office in the land. In 
one of Mr. Taft's speeches he speaks of "the voice 
of the people as coming next to the voice of God." 
Apparently, then, the decision of the people about 
the Presidency, after four months' deliberation, is 
to be treated as "next to the voice of God"; but if, 
after two years of sober thought, they decide that 
women and children shall be protected in industry, 
or men protected from excessive hours of labor under 
unhygienic conditions, or wage-workers compensated 
when they lose life or limb in the service of others, 



APPENDIX 233 

then their decision forthwith becomes a "whim" and 
"feverish" and "unstable" and an exercise of "the 
grossest tyranny" and the "laying of the axe to the 
root of the tree of freedom." It seems absurd to 
speak of a conclusion reached by the people after two 
years' deliberation, after threshing the matter out 
before the Legislature, after threshing it out be- 
fore the governor, after threshing it out before the 
court and by the court, and then after full debate 
for four or six months, as "the fitful impulse of a 
temporary majority." If Mr. Taft's language cor- 
rectly describes such action by the people, then he 
himself and all other Presidents have been elected by 
"the fitful impulse of a temporary majority"; then 
the Constitution of each State, and the Constitution 
of the Nation, have been adopted, and all amend- 
ments thereto have been adopted, by "the fitful 
impulse of a temporary majority." If he is right, it 
was "the fitful impulse of a temporary majority" 
which founded, and another fitful impulse which 
perpetuated, this Nation. Air. Taft's position is per- 
fectly clear. It is that we have in this country a 
special class of persons wiser than the people, who 
are above the people, who cannot be reached by the 
people, but who govern them and ought to govern 
them; and who protect various classes of the people 
from the whole people. That is the old, old doctrine 
which has been acted upon for thousands of years 
abroad; and which here in America has been acted 
upon sometimes openly, sometimes secretly, for forty 
years by many men in public and in private life, and 
I am sorry to say by many judges; a doctrine which 



234 APPENDIX 

has In fact tended to create a bulwark for privilege, 
— a bulwark unjustly protecting special interests 
against the rights of the people as a whole. This doc- 
trine to me is a dreadful doctrine; for its effect is, and 
can only be, to make the courts the shield of privilege 
against popular rights. Naturally, every upholder 
and beneficiary of crooked privilege loudly applauds 
the doctrine. It is behind the shield of that doctrine 
that crooked clauses creep into laws, that men of 
wealth and power control legislation. The men of 
wealth who praise this doctrine, this theory, would 
do well to remember that to its adoption by the courts 
is due the distrust so many of our wage-workers now 
feel for the courts. I deny that that theory has 
worked so well that we should continue it. I most 
earnestly urge that the evils and abuses it has pro- 
duced cry aloud for remedy; and the only remedy is 
in fact to restore the power to govern directly to the 
people, and to make the public servant directly 
responsible to the whole people — and to no part of 
them, to no "class" of them. 

Mr. Taft is very much afraid of the tyranny of 
majorities. For forty-five years here in New York 
State, in our efforts to get social and industrial jus- 
tice, we have suffered from the tyranny of a small 
minority. We have been denied, now by one court, 
now by another, as in the Bakeshop case, where the 
courts set aside the law limiting the hours of labor 
in bakeries, — the "due process" clause again, — as 
in the Workmen's Compensation Act, as in the 
Tenement-House Cigar Factory case, — in all these 
and many other cases we have been denied by small 



APPENDIX 235 

minorities, by a few worthy men of wrong political 
philosophy on the bench, the right to protect our 
people in their lives, their liberty, and their pur- 
suit of happiness. As for "consistency" — why, the 
record of the courts, in such a case as the income 
tax, for instance, is so full of inconsistencies as to 
make the fear expressed of "inconsistency" on the 
part of the people seem childish. 

Well-meaning, short-sighted persons have held up 
their hands in horror at my proposal to allow the 
people themselves to construe the Constitution which 
they themselves made. Yet this is precisely what the 
Association of the Bar of the City of New York pro- 
posed to do in the concurrent resolution which was 
introduced at their request in our Legislature on 
January 16 last, proposing to amend the State Con- 
stitution by a section reading as follows: "Nothing 
contained in this Constitution shall be construed to 
limit the powers of the Legislature to enact laws" 
such as the Workmen's Compensation Act. In other 
words, the New York Bar Association is proposing 
to appeal to the people to construe the Constitution 
in such a way as will directly reverse the court. They 
are proposing to appeal from the highest court of the 
State to the people. That is just what I propose to 
do; the difference is only one of method, not of pur- 
pose; my method will give better results, and will 
give them more quickly. The Bar Association by its 
action admits that the court was wrong, and sets to 
work to change the rule which it laid down. As 
Lincoln announced of the Dred Scott decision in his 
debates with Douglas: "Somebody has to reverse 



236 APPENDIX 

that decision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse 
it, and we mean to do it peaceably." Was Lincoln 
wrong? Was the spirit of the Nation that wiped out 
slavery "the fitful impulse of a temporary majority"? 

Remember, I am not discussing the recall of 
judges — although I wish it distinctly understood 
that the recall is a mere piece of machinery to take 
the place of the unworkable impeachment which 
Mr. Taft in effect defends, and that if the days of 
Maynard ever came back again in the State of New 
York I should favor it. I have no wish to come to it; 
but our opponents, when they object to all efforts to 
secure real justice from the courts, are strengthening 
the hands of those who demand the recall. In a great 
many States there has been for many years a real 
recall of judges as regards appointments, promotions, 
reappointments, and reclectlons; and this recall was 
through the turn of a thumbscrew at the end of a 
long-distance rod in the hands of great interests. I 
believe that a just judge would feel far safer in the 
hands of the people than in the hands of those 
interests. 

I stand on the Columbus speech. The principles 
there asserted are not new, but I believe that they 
are necessary to the maintenance of free democratic 
government. The part of my speech in which I advo- 
cated the right of the people to be the final arbiters 
of what is due process of law in the case of statutes 
enacted for the general welfare will ultimately, I am 
confident, be recognized as giving strength and sup- 
port to the courts instead of being revolutionary and 
subversive. The courts to-day owe the country no 



APPENDIX 237 

greater or clearer duty than to keep their hands off 
such statutes when they have any reasonably per- 
missible relation to the public good. In the past the 
courts have often failed to perform this duty, and 
their failure is the chief cause of whatever dissatisfac- 
tion there is with the working of our judicial system. 
One who seeks to prevent the irrevocable commission 
of such mistakes in the future may justly claim to be 
regarded as aiming to preserve and not to destroy 
the independence and power of the judiciary. 

My remedy is not the result of a library study of 
constitutional law, but of actual and long-continued 
experience in the use of governmental power to re- 
dress social and industrial evils. Again and again 
earnest workers for social justice have said to me 
that the most serious obstacles that they have en- 
countered during the many years that they have been 
trying to save American women and children from 
destruction in American industry have been the 
courts. That is the judgment of almost all the social 
workers I know, and of dozens of parish priests and 
clergymen, and of every executive and legislator who 
has been seriously attempting to use government 
as an agency for social and industrial betterment. 
What is the result of this system of judicial nullifi- 
cation? It was accurately stated by the Court of 
Appeals of New York in the Employers' Liability 
case, where it was calmly and judicially declared that 
the people under our republican government are less 
free to correct the evils that oppress them than are 
the people of the monarchies of Europe. To any man 
with vision, to any man with broad and real social 



238 APPENDIX 

sympathies, to any man who believes with all his 
heart in this great democratic republic of ours, such 
a condition is intolerable. It is not government by 
the people, but mere sham government in which the 
will of the people is constantly defeated. It is out of 
this experience that my remedy has come; and let it 
be tried in this field. When, as the result of years of 
education and debate, a majority of the people have 
decided upon a remedy for an evil from which they 
suffer, and have chosen a legislature and executive 
pledged to embody that remedy in law, and the law 
has been finally passed and approved, I regard it as 
monstrous that a bench of judges shall then say to 
the people: ''You must begin all over again. First 
amend your Constitution [which will take four years]; 
second, secure the passage of a new law [which will 
take two years more]; third, carry that new law over 
the weary course of litigation [which will take no 
human being knows how long]; fourth, submit the 
whole matter over again to the very same judges 
who have rendered the decision to which you object. 
Then, if your patience holds out and you finally pre- 
vail, the will of the majority of the people may have 
its way." Such a system is not popular government, 
but a mere mockery of popular government. It is a 
system framed to maintain and perpetuate social 
injustice, and it can be defended only by those who 
disbelieve in the people, who do not trust them, and, 
I am afraid I must add, who have no real and living 
sympathy with them as they struggle for better 
things. In lieu of it I propose a practice by which the 
will of a majority of the people, when they have 



APPENDIX 239 

determined upon a remedy, shall, if their will persists 
for a minimum period of two years, go straight for- 
ward until it becomes a ruling force of life. I ex- 
pressly propose to provide that sufficient time be 
taken to make sure that the remedy expresses the 
will, the sober and well-thought-out judgment, and 
not the whim, of the people; but, when that has been 
ascertained, I am not willing that the will of the 
people shall be frustrated. If this be not a wise rem- 
edy, let those who criticize it propose a wise remedy, 
and not confine themselves to railing at government 
by a majority of the American people as government 
by the mob. To propose, as an alternative remedy, 
slight modifications of impeachment proceedings is 
to propose no remedy at all — it is to bid us be con- 
tent with chaff when we demand bread. 

The decisions of which we complain are, as a rule, 
based upon the constitutional provision that no per- 
son shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property 
without due process of law. The terms "life, liberty, 
and property" have been used in the constitutions of 
the English-speaking peoples since Magna Charta. 
Until within the last sixty years they were treated as 
having specific meanings; "property" meant tangi- 
ble property; *' liberty" meant freedom from per- 
sonal restraint, or, in other words, from imprison- 
ment in its largest definition. About 1870 our courts 
began to attach to these terms new meanings. Now 
*' property" has come to mean every right of value 
which a person could enjoy, and "liberty" has been 
made to include the right to make contracts. As a 



240 APPENDIX 

result, when the State limits the hours for which 
women may labor, it is told by the courts that this 
law deprives them of their "liberty"; and when it 
restricts the manufacture of tobacco in a tenement, 
it is told that the law deprives the landlord of his 
"property." Now, I do not believe that any people, 
and especially our free American people, will long 
consent that the term "liberty" shall be defined for 
them by a bench of judges. Every people has defined 
that term for itself in the course of its historic devel- 
opment. Of course, it is plain enough to see that, in 
a large way, the political history of man may be 
grouped about these three terms, "life, liberty, and 
property." There is no act of government which 
cannot be brought within their definition, and if the 
courts are to cease to treat them as words having a 
limited, specific meaning, then our whole govern- 
ment is brought under the practically irresponsible 
supervision of judges. As against that kind of a 
government I insist that the people have the right, 
and can be trusted, to govern themselves. This our 
opponents deny; and the issue is sharply drawn be- 
tween us. 

If my critics would only show the same sober judg- 
ment of which they declare the people at large to be 
incapable, they would realize that my proposal is one 
of moderation and common sense. I wish to quote 
the remarks of William Draper Lewis, Dean of the 
Law School of the University of Pennsylvania: — 

"To a lawyer the most interesting suggestion 
Colonel Roosevelt has made is to allow the people, 
after consideration, to reenact legislation which a 



APPENDIX 241 

court decision has declared is contrary to some clause 
in the existing State Constitution. 

''Any one who has been asked to draft specific 
amendments to State Constitutions will hesitate to 
condemn, without serious consideration, the sug- 
gestion made by Colonel Roosevelt. To take a con- 
crete instance: The New York Court of Appeals 
declared the Workmen's Compensation Act, passed 
by the New York Legislature, unconstitutional, as 
depriving in its operation the employer of his prop- 
erty without due process of law. A number of amend- 
ments to the New York Constitution, designed to 
validate a compensation act, have been drafted, and 
it is not unlikely that one of them will be adopted. 
Personally, one or more of these amendments having 
been shown to me, I cannot but feel that constitu- 
tional amendments, designed to meet particular cases, 
run the danger of being so worded as to produce far- 
reaching results not anticipated or desired by the 
people. Colonel Roosevelt's suggestion avoids this 
difficulty and danger. If a persistent majority of the 
people of New York State want a workmen's com- 
pensation act, they should have it. But, in order to 
obtain it, they should not be driven to pass an amend- 
ment to their State Constitution, which may have 
effects which they do not anticipate or desire. Let 
them pass on the act, as passed by the Legislature, 
after a full knowledge that their highest court has 
unanimously expressed its opinion that the act is 
contrary to the Constitution which the people at a 
prior election have declared to be their fundamental 
law. 



242 APPENDIX 

"I may not always approve of what the persistent 
majority wants. I might sometimes think the meas- 
ure unwise. But that does n't alter the right of that 
majority to enforce its will in government. The 
Roosevelt idea, it seems to me, supplies an instru- 
ment by which that majority can enforce its will in 
the most conservative way. It makes explosions 

unnecessary. 

"I would have been very proud to have been the 
author of that plan, although I want to emphasize 
the fact that it involves no new principle, only a new 
method. 

"I don't mind saying, however, that I think it 
unfortunate that it should have been proposed by 
Colonel Roosevelt. He is a man of such marked char- 
acteristics, and his place in the political world is such, 
that he arouses intense enthusiasm on the one hand, 
and intense animosity on the other. Because of this, 
the great idea which he has propounded is bound to 
be beclouded, and its adoption to be delayed. It is a 
pity that anything so important should be confounded 
with any man's personality." 

As regards the Dean's last paragraph, I can only 
say that I wish somebody else whose suggestions 
would arouse less antagonism had proposed it; but 
nobody else did propose it, and so I had to. I am not 
leading this fight as a matter of aesthetic pleasure. 
I am leading because somebody must lead, or else 
the fight would not be made at all. 

I prefer to work with moderate, with rational, con- 
servatives, provided only that they do in good faith 
strive forward toward the light. But when they halt 



APPENDIX 243 

and turn their backs to the light, and sit with the 
scorners on the seats of reaction, then I must part 
company with them. We the people cannot turn 
back. Our aim must be steady, wise progress. It 
would be well if our people would study the history 
of a sister republic. All the woes of France for a 
century and a quarter have been due to the folly of 
her people in splitting into the two camps of unrea- 
sonable conservatism and unreasonable radicalism. 
Had pre-Revolutionary France listened to men like 
Turgot, and backed them up, all would have gone 
well. But the beneficiaries of privilege, the Bourbon 
reactionaries, the short-sighted ultra-conservatives, 
turned down Turgot; and then found that instead of 
him they had obtained Robespierre. They gained 
twenty years' freedom from all restraint and reform, 
at the cost of the whirlwind of the red Terror; and in 
their turn the unbridled extremists of the Terror in- 
duced a blind reaction; and so, with convulsion and 
oscillation from one extreme to another, with alter- 
nations of violent radicalism and violent Bourbon- 
ism, the French people went through misery toward 
a shattered goal. May we profit by the experiences 
of our brother republicans across the water, and go 
forward steadily, avoiding all wild extremes; and 
may our ultra-conservatives remember that the rule 
of the Bourbons brought on the Revolution, and may 
our would-be revolutionaries remember that no 
Bourbon was ever such a dangerous enemy of the 
people and of freedom as the professed friend of both, 
Robespierre. There is no danger of a revolution in 
this country; but there is grave discontent and unrest, 



244 APPENDIX 

and in order to remove them there is need of all the 
wisdom and probity and deep-seated faith in, and 
purpose to uplift, humanity, we have at our command. 
Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for 
social and industrial justice, achieved through the 
genuine rule of the people. This is our end, our pur- 
pose. The methods for achieving the end are merely 
expedients, to be finally accepted or rejected accord- 
ing as actual experience shows that they work well 
or ill. But in our hearts we must have this lofty pur- 
pose, and we must strive for it in all earnestness and 
sincerity, or our work will come to nothing. In order 
to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, lead- 
ers to whom are granted great visions, who dream 
greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; 
who can kindle the people with the fire from their 
own burning souls. The leader for the time being, 
whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used 
until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is 
worth his salt, he will care no more when he is broken 
than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is 
forfeit in order that the victory may be won. In the 
long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of 
us is, Spend and be spent. It is of little matter 
whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause 
shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We, here 
in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, 
the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace 
will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve 
is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes 
of men. If on this new continent we merely build 
another country of great but unjustly divided ma- 



APPENDIX 245 

terlal prosperity, we shall have done nothing; and 
we shall do little if we merely set the greed of envy 
against the greed of arrogance, and thereby destroy 
the material well-being of all of us. To turn this 
Government either into government by a plutocracy 
or government by a mob would be to repeat on a 
larger scale the lamentable failures of the world that 
is dead. We stand against all tyranny, by the few or 
by the many. We stand for the rule of the many in 
the interest of all of us, for the rule of the many in a 
spirit of courage, of common sense, of high purpose; 
above all, in a spirit of kindly justice toward every 
man and every woman. We not merely admit, but 
insist, that there must be self-control on the part of 
the people, that they must keenly perceive their own 
duties as well as the rights of others; but we also 
insist that the people can do nothing unless they not 
merely have, but exercise to the full, their own rights. 
The worth of our great experiment depends upon its 
being in good faith an experiment — the first that 
has ever been tried — in true democracy on the scale 
of a continent, on a scale as vast as that of the 
mightiest empires of the Old World. Surely this is a 
noble ideal, an ideal for which it is worth while to 
strive, an ideal for which at need it is worth while to 
sacrifice much; for our ideal is the rule of all the peo- 
ple in a spirit of friendliest brotherhood toward each 
and every one of the people. 



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